So I had a really fun time at work today. It was great! The greatest ever! See, I went to make this delivery this afternoon and parked in a parking lot, an empty parking lot, right next to the apartment building I was delivering to. Like all parking lots, this one is not public and is reserved parking for people who pay money, but I park illegally all the time because it's always in and out and back on the road. My job title shouldn't be pizza man (although I think the actual euphamism is "safe delivery expert"), it should be "Illegal Parking Specialist." Can you see where this is going yet? Okay, so I park, I run into the building, trade pizza for money, and come back out. I turn the corner out of the building onto the sidewalk and what do I see but my car attached to the back of a tow truck heading down the street. There were two other orders I was on the way to delivering sitting on the passenger seat. I was in the building for less than two minutes. Motherfuck.

So I called work on my cell as I walked back to the store, which I was happy to be only two blocks away from. That's the only thing I was happy about. We remade the orders and Scott sent a driver up from the other store to cover us because we were having a fairly busy time and I was the only driver. But who really gives a shit about that, I just wanted my motherfucking car back. I called the tow place and explained the situation to them. The girl I spoke to was sympathetic. She said the cost to get my car back is $100, but she'd call the manager and tell him what happened and see if he'd grant me some leeway. Call back in ten minutes. So I did, and they basically told me, "Tough shit. Give us $100." I had Jenn come and pick me up and take me back to my apartment so I could get my money, the lousy $95 I had laying around here which was hopefully going to go toward paying bills and paying back my mom and combined that with $5 from my pocket, and she took me to the tow place and I paid the thieving dirty motherfuckers to get my car back. The asshole at the counter told me, "Yeah, the driver didn't realize you were a pizza man until he already had your car hooked up." I thought to myself, "So he realized he shoudn't be towing my car, and then towed it anyway because it was already hooked up, huh?" But the fact is, I didn't believe that for a second. Like I said, I was in that building for under two minutes, and when I got back out my car was headed down the street. The only way that guy got my car hooked up on his truck and was heading down the street that fast was if he actually saw me park the thing in this parking lot, get out wearing my stupid uniform and carry a bright red bag with pizzas in it up to the building. The motherfucker damn well knew I was delivering a pizza, and when he hooked my car up he saw that there were two more pizza bags on the seat and delivery tags stuck to my steering wheel, and he towed the car away anyway, because he, like most tow drivers, has absolutely no conscience and knew this was an easy way to make $100, especially since he knew I'd be down there in an hour to pick the fucking thing up. How do fucking tow truck drivers sleep at night? Probably on a big pile of money. If you're a tow truck driver that works the city parking lots, you should fucking kill yourself. I'm serious. I'm surprised more tow truck drivers don't get shot.

But look at it this way. If you have no conscience at all and not an ounce of compassion, owning a towing business might be the right choice for you. All you need is a parking lot with a fence around it and a big truck. You hook up with other people who actually own the parking lots and offer them the "service" of dragging cars in violation of their parking regulations away. Then you lurk and wait for someone who is obviously only going to use the empty parking lot for a minute to get out of their car, hook it up and drag it to your gated lot. Five minutes worth of work. Collect $100 for doing nothing. Repeat.

Dear Retriever Towing:

You're all going to hell, if there is such a place. You enjoy spending my money, and I'll enjoy spending every free moment concentrating all my energy on the hope that one day the manager of your business will be riding along with the driver that towed my car and will lose control of the truck on the Fremont Bridge, causing you to dive over the edge and plunge to your deaths in the Willamette River. Fuck you, you dirty motherfuckers.