Maybe this has happened to you. But it was my first time.
It was a Monday afternoon, and I’d made a date to meet C., a former colleague, for a drink. I was a little late getting to the restaurant, my head fuzzy from a summer cold. So I pulled into the first parking place I saw, glanced at the sign that said something like "One hour parking until 4 p.m.," checked my watch to confirm it was, in fact, a few minutes after five, and hurried inside.
Forty-five minutes later I emerged onto the brilliant, 90-degree street. I said goodbye to C. — thinking only of my air conditioned family room, comfy oversize boxer shorts, and an old episode of Medium — and took three steps toward the empty place where my car was supposed to be.
I went back into the restaurant, followed by C., and told the bartender, who simply shrugged. "You must have been in a no parking zone. Happens all the time."
"That’s right," a patron volunteered. "I heard the city is making money this way. Towing cars like crazy."
I called information on my cell phone and asked to be connected to the Minneapolis Impound Lot. A woman answered the phone promptly; she listened to about three sentences of my story, then read a license plate to me. "That one yours?" she asked. And when I said yes: "You can come down and pick it up any time. That’ll be $138 for the tow, plus $34 for the parking ticket."
"Goddammit," I snorted through thick sinuses. Though the truth is that I probably would have paid three times that if they’d just brought my car back to me and let me go home.
I would have liked to claim terrible luck or injustice. But there were these facts standing in my way: first, the sign — clearly posted above — promised one-hour parking until 4 o’clock and NO PARKING from 5-7 p.m. And it was bright red. Also, despite my sniffling and increasingly foul mood, C. stuck with me, putting her own evening plans on hold and driving me eight miles to the impound lot, a bleak wasteland off Colfax Avenue North, just blocks from the Minneapolis Farmers Market.
Inside, it was all cinderblock and vending machines, a huge TV overhead playing The Jerry Springer Show. In other words, Hell.
And the greatest insult of all? I had to wait in line for the privilege of paying $172 to reclaim my own car. And there were nine or ten people already waiting for the two workers who stood behind glass, calling us forward one by one. C. tried to make conversation; she was a really good sport. I only muttered.
The line seemed to stretch on forever. An older man who’d finally made his way to the window was paying in worn ten- and twenty-dollar bills, which he counted out with shaking hands. In front of me, there was a mother clutching the hands of three babies, two men speaking quickly in Spanish, a very tired-looking young guy in a torn t-shirt. Plus two girls in sequined bebe shirts and Britney sunglasses who looked totally out of place.
Finally, it was my turn. A regal-looking, black woman called me to her window. I gave her my name and license plate number, then wrote out a check and slipped it under the glass barrier between us. "Why did they give me a parking ticket and tow my car?" I whined. "Why not just ticket it?"
The woman glanced down at the paper in front of her. "Hold on just a moment; let me check for you." She looked at something I couldn’t quite see — a map or a table of some sort. "It seems you were parked in a rush hour lane," she said in a low voice. "The police couldn’t get traffic through."
"Oh, I guess that sounds reasonable." I was feeling pretty stupid at this point. "Outside to your right, there’s a van that will take you to your car. Just show this to the driver." She passed a piece of paper through the slot. "Is there anything else I can do to help you?"
"No." I backed away. "But thank you."
"My pleasure," she said. And then she smiled like she meant it.
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