16 October 1999

If you get angry and there is no one to yell at, did you really get angry at all?
A couple days ago, as I’m coming out of work, just wanting to go home, relax a little, then head out to raise a few glasses with my friends, I happen to notice that there is this big orange sticker on my driver’s side window.
Then I see the boot on my front tire.
I park in a parking lot that costs me $2 a day. And I pay, begrudgingly, every day. And I had paid that day. But to pay for parking at the lots in downtown Atlanta, often you just slide money into a numbered slot on a big metal board. You see, it costs $5 or more a days to park in a lot with an attendant.
Anyhow, I know I had put my money in that morning, but in the haze of waking up I may have put it in the wrong slot. So now it becomes their word against mine. And I’m pissed, largely because I know I am screwed big time. I have no way out of this and its going to cost me, AND I WASN’T WRONG TO BEGIN WITH!!!
But there is no parking attendant, no one to yell at, so I just start yelling at nothing. The air.. the sky.. God. I’m yelling like a madman and kicking the ground and the boot, and generally making an ass out of myself… if there had been anyone to see me. That’s the meat of this .plan. Just being angry and having no one to even vent to. The rest is me just venting. 🙂
I call the 800 number on the big orange sticker, and talk to a very pleasant woman, who starts asking me questions that I feel shouldn’t need to be asked. In this day and age, when they boot my car, they should get my license plate number and car make, model and color, and call into a central office and have the stuff entered into a large database that includes which lot it was in, the exact address, and anything else they might need. To be honest, in this day and age, the guy who puts on the boot should have a little computer in his van that allows him to do this directly.
But noooOOOOoooo… this woman on the phone, who isn’t even located in Atlanta, asks me where I am. “Well, I’m in the parking lot.” But she wants the address. “It’s on a street in Atlanta.” She wants me to be specific. “Look, I work in a building down the street at (building address) and I park at this lot, I don’t know the address of the lot. Shouldn’t YOU know?” Then she explains she isn’t in Atlanta, doesn’t know the area, and doesn’t even know how long it should approximately take for the guy to show up to remove the boot. Then she asks me for my license plate number, make and model of the car… oh, and the color.
Then she politely says “If you could please stand in the parking lot next to your car, it will make ev
erything easier.” I’m about to give her the whatfor and tell her what would make it easier, but I hold it and just hang up.
An hour later, this little punk in a white van pulls up and opens his window about 2 inches. He asks how I’m going to pay, and I try to tell him my story. Of course, he’s heard it all before, but I’m telling the truth. Either way, turns out he doesn’t care because the company that boots the cars is contracted by the parking lot company, so he can’t do anything anyway. Then he informs me that he will not get out of the car until I have paid.
So I pay. $95. Parking in that rinky-dink lot cost me $97. It’s a scam.
But I learned a couple important lessons, the most important being how to remove a boot. Next time they boot me, I’m keeping it. 🙂

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