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Friday, January 20, 2006 

...all others will be towed

My Thursday:
  • I went to bed around 1am and fell asleep while thinking about what time I needed to set my alarm for (so I never actually set the alarm).
  • Woke up at 7:45 (but I would have liked to have woken up by 6am).
  • Got myself and Raegan ready for school as fast as I could but was in such a rush to get out the door that I forgot a few supplies that I needed for Health class.
  • Dropped Raegan off at school at 8:50. Drove like a bat out of hell to the parking garage closest to my class (don't have a permit to park there but my class started at 9:00 so I took the chance).
  • Made it to Literacy class right at 9:00.
  • While in class, I told my friend Joanna that I forgot the supplies for Health. She forgot them too so we decided we'd stop by her apartment before lunch and pick them up.
  • We got out of Literacy class 30 minutes early (10:30) and headed over to the parking garage to get my car. I always hold my breath when I park there for fear that it will have been towed. It was still there and no ticket. I got lucky again.
  • We pull into Joanna's apartment complex and I just park in the closest spot to her door because the plan is to just run up and get the supplies. Once we are up there though, I realize its too early to go to lunch so we start watching TV.
  • At 11:20 (20 minutes after our class was supposed to get out) I call Brian and let him know we're at Joanna's and ask him if he can pick us up to go to lunch. He says he'll be there at noon and we hang up.
  • 12:00 we head downstairs to move my car to a visitor's spot and leave with Brian.
  • PROBLEM *1: THE ION IS GONE
  • I look at Joanna and say, "Isn't this where my car was? Am I just not seeing it?" She kind of gives me a nervous look and the realization sinks in that my car has been towed. Apparently I parked in Employee parking for the mexican restaurant that is below her apartment complex. Oops. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to park there. The sign read "Parking for (Restaurant Name) Only. All others will be towed at owners expense." I just didn't realize that it was employee parking. I thought it was customer parking and how would they know we weren't customers.
  • Brian is already there waiting for us so I just shrug my shoulders and say I guess I'll deal with it after Health class. Once we're in the car, I ask Joanna if the sign had a phone number on it. We can't see a phone number from the car but Brian is pulling away by then anyway. He asks why we need a phone number and I tell him that my car is gone. His eyes get huge and he says, "IT GOT TOWED?!?!" So I say, "yeah, I guess I parked where I wasn't supposed to and we were in there for longer than we had planned." I say I'll just get the number after class and ask Brian if he can take me to pick up my car.
  • We go to Captain Gyros for lunch which I love but I don't think Brian or Joanna thought it was that great. At lunch I ask Brian if he wouldn't mind swinging by the apartment complex on his way home to find out the number for the towing place and to send it to me through a text message. He says he will but that he'll call for me also so that I won't have to after class.
  • At 1:15 Brian drives Joanna and I to campus for our Health class which goes from 1:30-2:45. While waiting for class to start, I make the remark to Joanna that I've just been assuming all this time that my car was towed but what if it wasn't. What if it was stolen. I then shrug off the idea because we hadn't even tried calling the towing places yet.
  • At 1:30 I remember that I need to send Chad a text message to let him know that I'll be slightly delayed from meeting him halfway at 4:00pm. So I run outside to send the text messge cause there is no service in the basement of the building.
  • At 2:45 Joanna and I leave class and head (on foot this time) back to her apartment. On the way I call Chad to make sure he got my message and he did. Then I call Brian to find out if he knows anything and he informs me that he cannot find my car. He called the apartment complex and they gave him the number for the towing place they use. He calls them and they say they don't have my car. They say they have a 2004 Saturn Ion with Purdue plates, but the one they have is white. Brian thinks thats odd because the entire description matches except my car is berry red. Way different than white. He asks them if they are sure and they say yes they are sure that it is white and not red. So he hangs up and calls the mexican restaurant thinking maybe they use a different towing company. Well they don't even speak English apparently so Brian asks them if someone is there that does speak English. They say not until 5. Guess they understood him enough to know that. So Brian calls all of the towing companies in town and can't find my car anywhere. At this point, he's getting frustrated because he wants to help but he's feeling powerless because he can't find my car for me.
  • PROBLEM *2: HAS THE ION BEEN STOLEN?
  • I thank Brian for going through all that trouble and let him know that once Joanna and I get back to her apartment we'll get to the bottom of it. Brian reminds me that he's called all of the towing places in town so there's a chance that it wasn't towed and thats its been stolen. I tell him that I'll call him back once I figure out whats going on.
  • We stop into the office and pick up the business card for the towing company. I see the name on it and remember that this is the one that Brian called first that said they didn't have a red Ion but they had a white one. So the whole way up to her apartment different thoughts are going through my head like, my car's been stolen, my purse was in it ... i'm gonna have to cancel all my credit cards, Raegan's booster seat is in there, how am I gonna pick her up from school without her booster seat ...
  • Once we get up to Joanna's apartment, I call the towing company and tell them that I think they may have my car. I tell them its a 2004 Saturn Ion. The guy on the phone asks me if its the red one. I say yes and he asks if it was towed from the apartment complex. I say yes again and he says yes they have it right there. He gives me directions and tells me the damage is 70 bucks ... cash, mastercard or visa. I thank him and hang up.
  • I call Brian to ask he he minds taking me to get my car. He's still in a cruddy mood for not finding it himself and now he's even more frustrated with this company because they did have my car and they told him they didn't.
  • Brian picks me up at about 3:15 and we go pick up my car. I thank him for his help and apologize for the trouble he went through for me. He tells me not to aplogize because he was glad to help ... he wasn't mad at me, just frustrated with the tow place. Which is understandable.
  • I head over to Raegan's school at about 3:30 to get her and call Chad on the way to let him know that I can meet him at 5 now.
  • I get to Raegan's school and head down the hallway to get her and the secretary calls after me that they're not there.
  • PROBLEM #3 - TRACK DOWN RAEGAN
  • The secretary says they went for a walk and they are over at the train station across pedestrian bridge. She says I can drive over there to meet them and get her from there.
  • So I'm driving across the "driving" bridge and I see all these little blurs of color walking on the pedestrian bridge ... heading back towards the school. So I pull into the train station and park. I see a cop in the parking lot facing my car and watching me park. So I double check to make sure I'm not parked illegally and then I run up all the stairs to the bridge as fast as I can. By this time I'm out of breath because I'm not much of a runner. When I get to the top of the stairs I see the little blurs of color more clearly and see that Raegan is at the front (farthest from me) running at full speed with the rest of her class in tow. They are almost completely across the bridge and I contemplate whether I should go back to my car and drive back to the daycare or cross the bridge and get her. I decide to cross the bridge to get her and when I was within ear shot from them I hear her teacher say, "Raegan there's your mom!" Her teacher yells an apology to me and I yell back to not worry about it. Then Raegan starts running to me and yelling, "MOMMY!!!! HOW'D YOU FIND ME?!?!?!?" I tell her it wasn't easy, but I tracked her down!!
  • We walk all the way back across the pedestrian bridge and down all the steps (by this time I'm carrying Raegan cause her little legs are worn out) and I'm wondering if my car is still going to be there. I feel that with my luck, it will be gone. To my surprise, its still there. I start putting Raegan in her booster seat but I have this odd feeling that I'm being watched. So I turn around to see the two girls in the car next to me starring at me. I give them kind of a nervous smile and then turn back to Raegan to finish buckling her in. One of the girls rolls her window down and calls out to me, "you got any jumper cables?" In my head I'm thinking, you've got to be kidding me. I glance over and see the cop still parked in the parking lot and I look back at her and say, "um.. yeah ... I think I might have some in my trunk. Let me check." So I finish with Raegan and pop my trunk to see if I do. I pull out the emergency car kit that I have never even opened and find jumper cables in there still wrapped in plastic. I hold them up so the girls can see and the passenger gets out and asks if I know how to use them. I tell her its been a long time since I've had to use any and I don't trust myself to not blow up the cars. She says she'll go find someone because their car is dead and they need a jump. I tell her to go ask the cop parked across the parking lot. She heads over there and he says he can't for liability reasons or something and she goes into the train depot to see if she can find someone in there to help.
  • While I'm standing there thinking about what an odd day its been, the girl walks out of the depot with a man and he asks me for the cables. I hand them to him and start my car and put it in reverse. He give me kind of an odd look, so I roll my window down and tell them I just have to turn the car around cause my battery is in the trunk. The guys says there's no way cause that would be too weird. I say I'm pretty sure its in the trunk but he tells me to put it in park and pop the hood. So I oblige and I pop the hood. He can't figure out how to get it open so I do it for him. He looks in and, what do you know, he doesn't see the battery. I tell him thats cause its the trunk and he still looks like he doesn'believe me. So then I pop the trunk and we walk around to the back and I pull of the flap where the spare tire is. Sure enough, the battery is right where I thought it would be. He says thats really weird and I tell him I should probably turn my car around so we can get this done. It takes two tries for me to get the car close enough for the cables to reach both batteries. He hooks the cables up and the other car starts right up on the first try. Praise the Lord! I can finally be on my way.
  • The jumper guy starts winding my cables back up and I say thats alright he can just toss them into the trunk. He says he doesn't mind trying to get them back the way they were. Then he pulls out the plastic bag that they came in and tries to get them back into it. I say its really not a big deal and he can just toss them in the trunk. He says it would be much better for me to store them in the bag. I let him finish and he lays them in the trunk for me. While he's doing this, the girls are thanking us for our help. I let them know that its the first time I've ever used the emergency car kit but that it was really pretty cheap from Target and that it would be a good idea for them to get one too. I tell them all goodbye and they thank me again. I tell them it was no problem and wish them luck that it doesn't happen again. Then I pull away. I call Chad to fill him in on the setbacks because by this time its almost 4:30 and it takes me over an hour to get to the meeting place. He says its ok cause he's just leaving his house. I should have known that ... he's late most of the time. ;-) I hang up with him and Raegan and I are on our way.
So that was my day. Pretty exciting, huh?

The best part is that the supplies that we needed for Health class were not that important afterall. We would have been just fine without them ... go figure.

09:25 |

HOly cow.. at least your car wasn't stolen! Wow.. quite the day.. next time.. forget the health material.

glimpsed by Blogger darcy | 1/20/2006 11:49 AM   

oh my gosh!!!
what a day!! I would have needed to cap it off with a trip to Harry's!!
I had a few situations like that at PU too!!
can't tell you how much $$ was racked up in parking tickets(in front of my sorority house!!).
but how lucky I was when I parked on campus..always took chances!

glimpsed by Blogger Elizabeth | 1/20/2006 12:04 PM   

Glad to read that you and Regan are ok and that your car is ok and that it hasn't been repainted white. I like the red. Hope that your day is better today. It is my birthday, everybody should have fun.

nic

glimpsed by Blogger Unknown | 1/20/2006 12:31 PM   

Hey you!
Sooo sorry about yesterday. It was such a weird day! I'm glad that everything was all right in the end...and at least the car wasn't stolen. Good old "Spunky". Hope you are having a good weekend! Better than yesterday at least. Talk to you later, Joanna

glimpsed by Anonymous Anonymous | 1/20/2006 6:41 PM   

I really got a kick out of your story about yesterday...I laughed so much!! I'm glad everything turned out ok in the end and that your car wasn't stolen after all...I know that none of it was funny at the time, but the way you told it was very entertaining...
love you lots!
MOM

glimpsed by Anonymous Anonymous | 1/21/2006 8:59 AM   

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