This is a semi-cheerful yet cautionary tale of woe for anybody who makes the mistake of thinking that near-empty parking lots on Dixon Avenue are a safe place to park during next year's Concord Hospital Rock 'N Race for cancer.  They aren't.  I saw at least 70 or 80 cars worth of event participants make this mistake yesterday evening, and a few of us paid a heavy price (one which in my case could have been much heavier).  Here's the story...

First the good part: the Rock 'N Race.  This was a really super event, and I'll look forward to hearing how much money it brought in for the Payson Center for Cancer Care.  I was very proud of my team from Quest Yoga Studio, which raised a total of $1,450.  My friends are all as broke as I am, so the only donation I secured was $35 from my wonderful mother, but that plus the $20 I plunked down to be part of the event and I figured I'd put $55 bucks toward making the event a success.  (I did get a t-shirt out of the deal, a Schick Quattro "Midnight" razor, and an organic chocolate bar, so I suppose I should consider the $20 money well spent.)

As we assembled in front of the state house, there were several sprinkly moments leading up to the start of the race (I was walking, not racing) and a few almost rainy moments during the first 1/8 of the course, but things cleared up as we took a right from Main St. onto Pleasant and started up the hill.  I put away my umbrella, and my fellow walkers and I got about our business... which was walking.  Along the course, I was pleasantly surprised to see probably 7 or 8 bands set up under canopies to entertain the runners and walkers.  Other folks just stood by and cheered us on, saying things like "thank you" and "keep up the good work."  That plus the sun peeking out gave most of us wet-shoed walkers the warm fuzzies, which is what you're supposed to get when you do something good for other people.

Unfortunately, the bad part: some of us got towed.

The story begins with me driving around looking for a parking space for this huge event, and a friend I ran into told me behind the Holiday Inn would be okay.  Well, I should have certainly taken her advice and parked behind the Holiday Inn, because I'm pretty sure the decent, civic-minded folks who run the Holiday Inn would never be such jerks as to call a towing company for a once-a-year event where people show to raise money for fighting cancer.  It's a short event, and the cars will be gone soon anyway, so what's the point unless you happen to be getting a kickback from the towing company?

So I messed up and parked in the lot _next_ to the Holiday Inn overflow lot.  Hell, it was about 80% empty; also, I'd just seen two other cars park there, and people wearing Rock 'N Race t-shirts hopped out of them without the slightest look of concern on their faces, so I followed suit.  When in Rome, right?  Well, people in Rome get towed, too, I'm afraid...

When I got back to the lot, every lot on Dixon Avenue was at least half-full if not 75% full.  They were slowly being emptied of cars as people left from the Rock 'N Race.  But sure enough, there were two tow trucks in the one lot I happen to have landed in, and my crappy old Sunfire was already perched atop one of them.  Fortunately, I have a lot of experience getting towed, having attended graduate school in Morgantown, WV, which is home to the shadiest towing jerk in the universe, Captain Kickback himself, Vic Solomon of Vic's Towing.  (I seriously almost took a swing at Vic once just to wipe the smirk off his face after he'd "legally" robbed me yet again, but that's another story -- Vic, unlike the guy who towed me after the race, is the kind of guy who would tow cars away from a funeral and giggle all the way to the bank.) 

The guy from John's Wrecker Service was clearly not in a good mood when I walked over, but I didn't immediately know why.  He was about to hop in the truck and drive it back to the shop, but I politely identified myself as the owner of the vehicle and asked what it would take to get the thing down.  The guy said he'd have to call the shop and ask, which he did (walked around the truck to do so), and then came back and informed me that if I had $75 cash, he could let my car down, and if not, he'd have to take it back to the shop and it would be a lot more.  I asked what a lot more was, and he said $150.  I agreed, that was a lot more, but I said that fortunately I had the $75.  Lucky for me I had just been to the bank!

Then the guy asked me to hop in the truck so he could drive to another lot where he'd have more room to let my car down.  Once I was in the car, he made it pretty clear that he felt awful to be towing cars under these circumstances, but that his company had a contract with the lot owner, and the lot owner had called them.  "I feel like I'm taking candy from orphans," he lamented.  I assured him that I wasn't an orphan, that I knew the risk when I parked next to a "No Parking" sign, and that he was just doing his job.  I had no choice but to fork over the $75, but I did have a choice in whether or not to get riled and take my frustration out on a person who was only following a bad order to avoid losing his job.

So here is my comment to John or whoever runs John's Wrecker Service: next time you are called to tow cars from a half-empty lot during a charity event, the best response is to say "dude, those cars will be gone in an hour -- it's the Rock 'N Race!"  If you absolutely have to tow cars because the lot owner insists, reduce your rates for the people you tow, and if you're not going to do that, at least donate 50% of the money you make off schmucks like me to the Concord Hospital Payson Center for Cancer Care!

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a political blog, so to appease my readers, I will politicize the conclusion.  So here goes...

Did this crap happen back in the good old days?  And does asking that question make me a conservative? ;)