Please Jack Up My Car

Two weekends ago, I was out with friends, eating dinner and then bar-hopping. As we were walking east on 21st Street, we noticed an NYPD tow truck was attempting to tow a brand-new, silver Solera that was parallel parked across the street. There were approximately four police officers involved in this towing – one in the tow truck, one stopping traffic, and two helping the tow truck officer.

As none of us had ever witnessed the towing of a car that was in a rather tight parallel parking spot, we all stopped to watch this magical feat.

First, the tow truck slid a type of bar under the front of the car, which should have hooked on to both front tires to lift up and then pull the car sideways, rotating it on the rear tires. However, Mr. Tow Truck guy didn’t quite catch one of the front wheels correctly. Well, that didn’t work, so he tried again. This time, he was a little more successful, but still did not manage to catch the far front wheel correctly.

This is the inner dialogue, as I heard it, occurring in Mr. Tow Truck’s head at this point:

“Hmmm…did I get that front wheel? Maybe I didn’t, but do I really want to have to try to get it again? This is taking forever. Look at all that traffic building up behind me on the street. And damn those stupid little Asian people for staring and laughing at me, and putting me under pressure while I’m trying to do my job! Aw, well, even if I didn’t get that front wheel, it’s good enough, I can just force the car out anyways.”

So try anyways, he did. And at first it was pretty amazing – the front of the car started lifting up, up, up! But it was all just a teaser, because then the front of the car went *CRASH* and was suddenly back down on the ground in the same place it started.

We gave a collective gasp, and then started laughing. What idiots! What were they going to do now? They’ve managed to damage the car, create a ton of traffic, and were no closer to towing the car than they were before. Of course, some of the friends I was with felt the need to run across the street to survey the damage to the brand new car. Turns out the front bumper was starting to come off and the front right wheel was completely misaligned.

At a loss of what to do, the police officers decided to call back up. Suddenly there were three other tow trucks on the street, but what did they think they could do that the other tow truck couldn’t? Actually demolish the car?

This was great! It was freezing outside, and we were standing there, shivering, getting free entertainment (of course, I’m sure I was paying for it with my tax dollars). The only thing that could make it better was if the owners were to suddenly show up.

That’s when we heard the yelling. Two women and one man were standing next to the car, wondering what the hell was going on! We couldn’t help but start laughing, and then wondered if they would even notice the damage that had been done to their car.

In the end, the police officers let the owners of the car drive away without even telling them that their front wheel was completely jacked and the bumper was falling off. I was so disappointed that the car owners didn’t even notice the damage – I wanted to see how the police officers would handle that one. I bet those police officers breathed a sigh of relief as they watched the Solera drive away.

Just another reason I am thankful I live in the city and don’t own a car.