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Orthopedic intermission

There aren't many things more frustrating and infuriating than slipping while walking and breaking one's arm and potentially jeopardizing one's athletic plans for several months.

One of those rare things is walking outside to find that your car has been towed. Because you parked in a 3pm-7pm tow zone. And it's 3:23pm.

I was especially mad at myself when I saw the ticket and realized that I had walked out to get my car only eight minutes after it had been towed. Dammit.

And then I was really fuming when I learned that in addition to the $169 towing charge and the $60 parking ticket, the City of San Francisco tacks a $70 "administrative fee" onto the towing cost. WTF? Isn't that what the TICKET is for? What a racket. Do the math and you'll see that I paid $300 for my stupid, stupid mistake.

$300.

THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS.

I admit it was my own inattentiveness that got me towed. I was running late to meet a friend for lunch, and it was pouring rain, and I was scrambling for change -- and hooray, someone left 33 minutes on the meter for me! -- and the tide was high and waves were crashing over the Embarcadero railing onto the sidewalk, and I was thinking how dramatic, I should get a photo! So I didn't notice the sign warning me of the restrictions. In this space where I have parked a hundred times over the years. My mistake. I accept responsibility. But $300 seems, I dunno, A LITTLE STEEP.

SF is known for draconian, and often totally confusing, parking restrictions, and I take great pride in not getting parking tickets. We haven't gotten a ticket in ages, even all those years when we lived in the tiny apartment on Ashbury with no parking, and had to do the street-sweeping shuffle several times a week, and man is that a great way to take years off your life. And still we avoided getting a single ticket for something like the last 8 years. I am not one of Those People... people who get towed!

Obviously I am being punished for my hubris.

The friend I met for lunch, bless her, walked with me the 14 blocks to the pound while entertaining me with her own towing stories. In the rain.

I never did get a great photo of crashing waves.

January 8, 2008 10:25 PM