It gets better

The continuing story of my soon-to-exist-no-longer-Saturn continued this week as I attempted to retrieve my belongings (read: lots of junk) from it. The car was towed to a lot behind a Dunkin' Donuts and next to a car repair shop. Kitty corner from the tow lot was a gas station. When I called to ask how long the lot was "open" the guy said "'Til 10:00pm" and then hung up on me. The entire phone call went like this:

Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Ring, ring. This ringing went on for a long time before someone finally answered.

"Smsldfsldkfsdf" mumbled the voice on the other end, gruffly.

"Uh, hi ... I had my car towed to your--" I hadn't finished my sentence when he unceremoniously put me on hold.

"OK," I said to myself.

"Nagashack's" said a friendlier-sounding voice.

"Hi, my car was towed to your lot and I need to remove my belongings. How late are you open?" I said in a rush, not wanting to get cut off again.

"Til 10:00pm." And then there was a click.

Wow. Talk about your customer service. They should make a video, on what not to do.

How convienent, though, to be open until 10:00pm. So after work, Jon came to my house, we had dinner, and then drove over to the lot (didn't want to get stuck in traffic--that's why we ate first). It had just gotten dark, and lots filled with crashed cars are scary looking in the dark. The brightly lit Dunkin Donuts was akin to the Holy Grail over Castle Anthrax.

Not knowing what else to do, I called up the towing service. After about one million rings, there was the same mumbled greeting.

"Hi, my car is in your lot--" again I'm interrupted.

"Come to the gas station." Click.

So Jon and I approached the kitty corner gas station which seemed very dark in comparison to Dunkin Donuts. A lone man in a tiny booth was surrounded by gas pumps. The auto shop section of the gas station was dark.

"My car is in your lot," I said again. I felt like I should come up with a new phrase, but what else could I say?

"Tomorrow," said a young black man with a foreign accent.

"Tomorrow?" I repeated, confused.

"He's gone. Come back tomorrow."

"But I just talked to him!" I said unhappily.

"I don't know," he said, obviously wishing he could do something. "He just left."

Disgruntled and irritated, grumbling and whining, I shuffled back to Jon's car, my poor sweet boyfriend at a loss of what to do (with me and the situation).

I decided that I would just have to go during the day. So this morning I called in to work and called a cab to pick me up at 10:30 in the morning (traffic avoidence and thus avoidence of awkward conversation with taxi driver while we sit in traffic).

Well it turns out that my taxi driver was very nice (another black man with a foreign accent, but no so young) but we still had a couple traffic snarls (thank you N Star--local energy utility) and just as we were approaching the gas station, there was a loud CLUNK. Oh good lord, I thought, please don't tell me my taxi has a flat tire. No, just a hub cap that went spinning away. He pulled over to search for it, but he didn't find it.

We pulled into the gas station, and it turned out it was the wrong gas station. What the hell. They really should have put down which gas station they operate from on their business card. With some creative driving we made it to the right gas station, so that they could send us over to the lot where we waited for a man with Harly Davidson license plates and a black leather belt with Indian Head nickles on it to figure out he has the wrong key. So back he goes to get the right key while I stand at the gate of this morgue of ruined cars.

Then, when we finally get inside the lot, I find my car is sandwiched in between cars that look like their in much better shape than mine. I pull trash bags and empty my car into them. I had a lot of crap in my car. In fact, I don't want to get in to how much stuff I had (Habitat was responsible for a lot of it).

So yeah. That's the story of my car. I said good-bye to it, lugging away two trash bags of stuff (one to be thrown out, one to be sorted through later).

The good news is the insurance company is giving me enough money to pay off the loan on my car, and even a few hundred extra (clothes! How exciting that would be to have some new clothes. I feel like such a scrub at work).

All right, it's after six and I'm still in the office. Time to get out of here.

Good night nurse!