getting towed

Nicole Cyr
Getting towed shouldn’t be a thing you can legally do.
The concept of getting your car towed never really concerned me. To be honest, I thought all those signs that scream DO NOT PARK HERE…VEHICLE WILL GET TOWED were bluffing. I was wrong. My parents were wrong. They called the same bluff.

My family went to Boston for the weekend to watch a basket ball game. The next morning, we decided to acquire some authentic food from a quaint cafe before we hit the road to head home. The cafe was on a little dead end side street. There were only a few parking spots on the side of the road. My dad decided that parking in a tow zone for no more than ten minutes would be harmless. So harmless, that none of us thought twice about it. So we got the food and coffee. Took about five or so minutes. I begun to walk out. That’s funny. Where’s the car. It was right here. Where did it go. Immediately I turned into a angry knot of panic and start frantically asking my mom, who was trailing close behind, where the damn car went. My dad took another minute to come out to witness me and my mom in a full panic. Cut to us calling the tow company listed on the sign. Why would they answer, it’s not like they had our vehicle. After the seventh attempt, we got the address, called an uber, and jumped on the fury road. I was steaming and plotting a revenge scheme in my head, who could just take our car. It took the uber driver, who was thankfully a very patient and kind man, some time to figure out where the place was, as our set destination was conveniently in the industrial part of Boston, which as it turns out is not very easy to navigate. We found it eventually, and I kid you not, I thought I was in a movie. The stereotypical description of a run down tow company met us. Falling apart trailer, rusted cars with boots attached, dirt lot riddled with dips and deep potholes. $152 to get the damn car back. Cash only. Yes, everyone carries around two hundred in cash. We as a family unit try to muster up the sum with the cash we had on us. As I began walking to our vehicle to grab my wallet, I got chased down by a young adult man in red pj pants halfway off his body. He thought I was going to steal back our vehicle before paying. Well, as I look about twelve years old, I definitely see where he came to that conclusion. Our conjoined sum of cash came quite short of the fee, so me and my dad found a credit union with an ATM within walking distance. The walk there was quite scenic: abandoned factories paired with the sounds of crunching broken glass bottles under our feet. How pleasant. We acquired the cash, passed it to the lovely employee that we couldn’t see through the only window—tinted to full opacity—on the trailer, with a tiny space at the bottom where the transactions were to be made, and skirted the hell out.

I will admit, it was quite the experience, however, I wouldn’t recommend parking in a tow zone. As stupid as it seems, tow signs mean business.