Towed Away

So the other night I park the Nissan Quest on DeKalb Avenue right next to Fort Greene Park. It was about six thirty at night and I was not in the yellow line of the bus stop right in front of me.

We walk a block to my sister-in-law’s brownstone on South Oxford. Have a nice dinner, and then walk back to the van at about eight thirty at night. As we make the left on to DeKalb, I look across the street to where the van was parked, and well, no van.

Now I grew up in Brooklyn and even had the back wheels of my 84 Monte swiped right off the car when I lived at 125 Ocean Parkway for two years. I remember walking out of the building early one Sunday morning, all bleary eyed after a late night out in the city.
As I got closer to the Monte something just wasn’t right, instead of two circles which should have been the back wheels, there were two squares which turned out to be wooden milk crates. They even stole my freaking brake drums too.

By the way, the car was parked right on the service road off Caton Avenue, the same place I had it parked one morning when I found a gigantic screwdriver stuck in the ignition column too.

Boy that Monte was a real hot car, and everyone just wanted to steal her all the time. Or at least get a piece of her, even if it was just her tires and brake drums.

Yeah, so back to the Nissan Quest.
No one wants to steal a big white dirty Nissan Quest, no, I knew the damn thing must have got towed instead. Because when it comes to being a “sexy” car that everyone wants a piece of, well, the Quest is more of a “Janet Reno” instead of an “Angela Jolie”.

Ok, so now is the real evil part, deep down I was really hoping the thing was stolen and burning up somewhere in Prospect Park.
Maybe in the center drive where we used to take our girlfriends back in the 70’s along with stripping parts off stolen cars, because the thing is really worthless, and I’d get more for it if it was stolen and burnt to a crisp.

Oh, but don’t tell Geico, because the book value is still fantastic.

So I walked over to where I was parked and looked up at the sign, yes I was actually parked in a “no standing” zone. Yes the car was towed,

Now I used to always memorize all the my license plates when I was younger. But forget the Quest, I had no idea what the plate number was. And because my wife uses the van everyday to drive my kids to school, all the stuff is in the glove compartment.

So my brother in law Ralph drives us home and I immediately start looking through all my paperwork looking for my plate number.

Insurance ID cards……no

Photos on my computer of my daughter painting
the side of the Quest with mud upstate….no,
the plates are cropped off.

Title….no

Bill of sale….no

Damn, you need the freaking plate
number to pick up the stupid thing.

So finally I find an EZ-Pass statement, what the hell you never know.
I open it up and sure enough it has my plate number.

What??
Along with a fine from 2007 that I never paid because I must have driven through the toll gate too fast and it didn’t read the box.

Gee, I never paid that?

So the rest is history folks, I skated down to the Brooklyn Navy yard. Was as friendly as possible to all the people working there on a Saturday morning. Paid the 185-dollar fine, and drove the dirty Quest back to Kensington.

I also wrote the plate number down and now keep it in my wallet.
Because you never know what might be missing from my
driveway one morning. And what might be burnt to a crisp in
the center drive of Prospect Park.

Ron Lopez


Free Counter