Last Friday afternoon my car was not where I had left it. I thought it had been towed?a fact that security affirmed?and to retrieve it, I had to find a ride to Sanford's Auto Center and Towing in Bath, about three miles past Wal-Mart on Bath Road. I also had to come up with $50.00, the fee necessary to free one's car from its forced bondage.
Sanford's occupies a squat sand-colored building. A smiling racecar driver on a Coke machine glows red next to the door of the towing section. I entered a large room that seemed dark even though the fluorescent lights shone down brightly. A section is walled off to form a cubicle on one side and, the day I visited, a mechanic worked under the hood of a crimson truck.
Behind a sheet of dirty, hard plastic in front of the cubicle, which has a hole in it through which to speak, sat a middle-aged woman. Her visage looked like what was written on a sign pasted to the wall behind her: "Now is NOT a good time to annoy me!" Given that it is Friday at 5:00 p.m., I could understand her sentiment.
"What can I help you with?" she asked, sounding like she didn't really want to help me with anything.
"Uh, my car got towed here this morning and I'd like to pick it up..."
"What kind of car?" she demanded in a tone that made me recoil.
"Silver Honda Accord."
"Massachusetts plates?" she demanded.
I nodded in confirmation, wary to utter another word.
"Fifty dollars: cash or credit?"
As her long fingers, nails painted jet black, grabbed my Visa, I could tell she would have preferred cash. She stepped to the back of her cubicle to run the card. I looked around and noticed a few other signs in her working space with slogans like: "Would you like a little cheese with that whine?" and "You want WHAT?"
The phone rang and she put down my card before she had run it. I gathered that someone was calling to find out the location of his car.
"I don't...okay, sir...I'll find someone who does...just hold on," she said. She put the phone down and went back to running my card without getting anyone for the guy on the phone.
I couldn't see exactly what she is doing with the card machine and the Visa, but after ten minutes I got nervous that they wouldn't not let me get my car and I would be left stranded in West Bath. I have a cell phone, but it's out of battery power.
I was shaken out of my worries by the sound of metal clattering and the yell of the mechanic working on the pickup. He had dropped a small wrench into the hood of the car. Realizing that it would be almost impossible to get out, he began a loud rant so profane that it would make even the crustiest lobsterman blush with embarrassment.
I turned back around to see if my card had gone through, only to find the woman banging on the machine. She began to yell at it and suddenly I was listening to a symphony of obscenities in surround sound.
"Your card's not working, hon. Sorry," she said with a hint of real sympathy. "I think the machine has shut down for the day and I can't give you the car for free." My worst-case scenario was becoming reality. I pleaded with her.
She gave it some thought and kindly decided to take down my card number and charge the $50 to it tomorrow. Thanking her profusely, I jogged towards my car with a huge smile on my face: success!
Starting up the engine, I began to pull out when a large flatbed tow truck backed into a position that blocked me from leaving. I honked my horn and flashed my lights, all to no avail. Back in the building, the driver of the flatbed was just picking up the phone to talk to the guy who had been put on hold for the last thirty minutes.
"Excuse me sir, I think you just blocked me in," I said.
"If you could just hold on for another minute, sir..." the driver said, putting the phone back down. I could hear yelling coming from the phone as I walked back outside. The flatbed was moved and I was back on the road with my now-liberated car.
A few days later, I heard someone ask his friend, "Think security'll ticket me if I leave my car here overnight?"
"I wouldn't worry about it, dude."