I have no problem with blame shifting. I’m happy to push problems, big or small off onto any one of my readily available list of favorite causes – my childhood, my genes, my study habits, the moon, the hot weather, the cold weather, my astrological sign or whatever it was I had for breakfast. I realize this is probably a serious character flaw, and so want to preface my main point by preparing readers with this knowledge.
Amanda Bynes almost got my car towed. She is the lamest, ever.
Last week, a late night with several episodes of USA’s awesome show “Psych” led to me being far to sleepy to drive home from a friend’s house. I slept on a 4 ft long sofa and awoke around 5:30 a.m. to a vaguely loud and rumbly noise.
The small part of my brain that was awake subliminally defined it as a school bus, making the connection through the presence of the fenced playground across the street. But as the noise continued, my subconscious became unhappy with this supposition. A mental itch spread to a slightly larger part of my brain, and I remembered that there was, in fact, no school on this street, just a playground that looked like it went with a school.
I wished I could go back to sleep. But now the mental itch became a more persistent mental rash and it refused to be ignored. It demanded a name to put with the mysterious rumbly engine outside where I slept.
My brain gears started creakily turning and a picture, a snapshot of the night before, flashed before my mind’s eye: I had parallel parked across the street in between a couple of cars, but there had been something odd along the road. Orange cones. I had dismissed them because of the many other cars whose drivers had similarly ignored them.
My conscious was still trying to bully the rest of my brain back to sleep, when all the pieces thudded into place. I jumped up and ran (or maybe blearily stumbled) to the window to peek out.
Two tow trucks filled up the narrow street below. One had its hapless cargo, a Volkswagen Beetle, already securely attached, and the other was just starting to sink its claw into my poor little red jeep.
It may have been the dimly-lit street, it may have been a trick my sleep-encrusted mind, but those tow trucks were scary. They were gargantuan, towering, and looked eerily similar to the people-harvesting machines in “The Matrix.”
Nevertheless, I most certainly did not want to take a cab to another chain-link and barbed-wire-enclosed lot with hard-packed, uneven dirt and a ferocious, growling rabid dog on a chain. Nor did I want to pay whatever exorbitant amount set for my car’s release.
So I flew down the stairs with my keys, and out, barefoot, onto the gravel road. Ouch.
“Stop! Stop! Don’t take my car!” I wondered afterward how often tow truck drivers have to deal with the sudden and disheveled appearance of one of their captives’ owners moments before hauling them away. These guys actually looked annoyed! I was convinced once and for all that everybody in this industry was completely devoid of humanity.
“Didn’t you see the sign?” one of them growled ungraciously. He gestured with a filthy hand at the park fence.
While I had seen (and disregarded) the orange cones, I had actually not seen the tiny white sign attached to the park fence.
“Warning: No parking Wednesday 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. Filming,” it read.
“Sure didn’t,” I replied, as the disgruntled driver unhooked the cables from my car, muttering and chuntering all along.
I got in my car and moved it, watching, as I did, another person’s mode of transportation being taken away to impound lot. Another four cars were taken, but no more owners appeared. I felt that I was witnessing murder, or at least abduction, and should do something to warn the sweetly slumbering street. But I had no idea whose cars were which, and the most creative idea I had was to lay on the horn until annoyed people were forced to look out their windows and witness the terror on the street. .
In the end, though, I just reparked my car and limped barefooted back through the gravel and upstairs again.
I haven’t heard what movie was being filmed, but my friend said he thought it was something with Amanda Bynes, because he’d seen her outside of a trailer that month.
Whatever it is, I absolutely won’t be going to see it – I’m boycotting. Amanda and her movie almost got my car towed.
