Car towed ($%&#!)

Today was the most humbling day I've had in ages.

Ok, here's the scenario. We moved into the city of St. Paul in September. On and off since then we have had a car from Mom and John. We don't have a parking lot so we've had to park it in the street.

Because of this situation, since September I've been thinking (and admitedly somewhat worrying) about what to do when it snows. As my mom reminded me several times, when it snows you have to move the car out of the way of the snowplows or you will get towed.

So ALL winter has passed so far without a single snow-plowing day (a very rare and bizarre winter for Minnesota). Nonetheless, I checked the city website, printed out the snow emergency plowing rules and posted them in the kitchen, subscribed to BOTH the reminder phonecall and email that tell you when you have to move your car.

So this weekend the snow finally came I was READY. I was completely prepared. At 9pm last night the night plow routes had to be vacated. Then at 8am this morning we had to get off the day plow routes.

Last night Marco and I carefully move the car off our side of the street, which was a night-plow route. At midnight we look out the window and check one more time - the car is still there.

Then this morning we wake up - and the car is gone!!

We freak out and call around and find out that, guess what, BOTH sides of the street were night plow routes. We thought the whole city alternated sides of the street between day and night but our street is the freak exception to the rule.

So we got towed, had to pay an absolute fortune to get the car out of the impound lot and really felt like idiots. As I stood in line at the municipal impound to get my car back I was surrounded by the buffoons and badly organized people of the city - people who got their cars towed, just like me.

This whole annoying experience felt like driving across a vast, empty desert, seeing one lone cactus in the middle of the horizon from a mile away, yet still driving straight up and crashing into it. Not another stupid cactus in sight and a hundred miles of empty space but I still ran straight into it.

That's the kind of morning I had.