And there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut

[spatch]

The section of A Street by our office building has a NO PARKING ANY TIME restriction on it. Even so, every day the street is filled with parked cars who don't want to pay the $10 a day for parking in the legal lot. So periodically the city decides hey, let's make 'em wish they'd paid $10 today instead of what they're going to pay now.

For the past ten or fifteen minutes now, we've been watching a whole damn fleet of tow trucks -- there must have been six or seven, a few flatbeds, all from the same company -- picking up an entire street of cars and hauling them off, getting Real Paid in the process. Nobody's come running out yet in protest, but I'm betting that come 5:00, there's gonna be some people outside really bummed (which is what you are when you go out to your car and it's been towed.)

However, all of us are S-M-R-T and either A. don't own a car or B. park legally, so the Tow Truck Show is the best show running today. Most fun is the running commentary. "He's going for the Audi, watch out, there goes the Audi!" A flatbed hauled the Audi up, then used its T bar for the minivan behind it. "Two for the price of one!" we cheered. There really is something quite fascinating about watching an entire cadre of tow trucks working in parallel, especially when it's not your car that's involved.

I am also reasonably sure that the fact that today is a disgusting, rainy drizzly day was a special factor in the decision to do it today. Aw, sweet schadenfreude. And now we invite you to shift on your sanitary pedestals and join us in this hymn, per order of PD:

Toad Away, Toad Away
Toad Away, Toad Away
Where do you go
When you're Toad Away?

(often the answer is "you go... back to the shadows again...")

Comments

[brak55.livejournal.com]

Ah, it reminds me of the old Steve Goodman song The Lincoln Park Pirates. That one's set in Chicago, but I'm sure it applies to many big cities.

So here, cluttering up your comments, are the words to the Goodman song.

In Chicago, where I live, there's a...there's an outfit that'd tow almost anything off the street. They deal mostly with automobiles and we call them the Lincoln Park Pirates...

The streetlamps are on in Chicago tonight
And lovers a'gazin' at stars
The stores are all closin', and Daley is dozin'
And the fat man is counting the cars
And there's more cars than places to put 'em, he said
But I've got room for them all
So 'round 'em up boys, 'cause I want some more toys
In the lot by the grocery store

To me, way, hey, tow them away
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
And we always collect our fee!
So it's way, hey, tow 'em away
We plunder the streets of your town
Be it Edsel or Chevy, there's no car too heavy
And no one can make us shut down

We break into cars when we gotta
With pickaxe and hammer and saw
And they said this garage had no license
But little care I for the law!
All my drivers are friendly and courteous
Their good manners you always will get
'Cause they all are recent graduates
Of the charm school in Joliet

To me, way, hey, tow them away
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
And we always collect our fee!
To me, way, hey, tow 'em away
We plunder the streets of your town
Be it Edsel or Chevy, there's no car too heavy
And no one can make us shut down

And when all the cars are collected
And all of their fenders are ruined
Then I'll tow every boat in Belmont Harbor
To the Lincoln Park Lagoon
And when I've collected the ransom
And sunk all the ones that won't yield
I'll tow all the planes that are blocking the runways
At Midway, O'Hare, and Meigs Field

To me, way, hey, tow them away
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
We always collect our fee!
To me, way, hey, tow 'em away
Now citizens, gather around
And I think it's enough, and let's call his bluff
Let's tow the bum out of town!

and on the other side of the war

[spatch]

I love it.

This reminds me of a particular song from the 90s with a distinctive Wisconsin voice that would routinely play on the Dr. Demento show back then. I think it was called "LET'S BLOW UP THE TOW TRUCKS" or something because that's pretty much what the chorus was.