Toddler Towing Company

I've posted once about a personal fiasco of mine that I experienced when I needed my car towed. It was gut-wrenching and horrifying in every way to witness some geriatric jackass texting while driving with my car hooked up to the back. Here's another story about a car being towed, and even though I was not involved, it hit very close to home. No, I mean literally...like the same street and everything. I'll link you to the story, but in case you don't want to read this less-than-ten-sentence article because it'll take time away from knitting, feeding your tarantula or badminton practice, I'll give you the short version. Some lady's car was towed from our neighborhood, and her 21-month-old son was asleep in the back seat. She's possibly looking at facing charges now. Here it is anyway.

I only wish I could be this badass.

Let's give this a closer look, shall we? Alright, so here we have a woman who parked her car in a fire zone so that she could run inside and grab something. She leaves her toddler in the back seat, runs in, an undetermined amount of time goes by, she runs back outside and her car and child are gone. Presumably this woman lives in the place she ran into, otherwise this story could get much more interesting if she doesn't. Anyway, here's my first question: if she lives there, how hard would it be for her on a Wednesday afternoon to find a parking spot and just pull in like she normally would? Hell, we have numbered spots that are apartment-specific and number-free spots that are available for anyone to occupy. Instead, she chose a fire lane. I guess that's reasonable...that she would confuse a marked fire lane with a VIP parking section. She lost all of my sympathy once this fact was presented. I feel bad for the toddler for a couple of reasons, though. For one, he was unknowingly dragged several miles from home because of his mother's pure ignorance. Then that leads me to the other reason: he's the product of this imbecile. He is the spawn of what we should all strive not to be: an f'n idiot. Kid, I'm sorry your mom sucks so bad at life, but I think she's too far gone for saving.

Okay, so then there's the time aspect of the whole thing. She says she only ran in to "quickly grab something" and between walking in and out of her front door, her car was gone. I've seen some tow trucks tow somebody away pretty swiftly, believe me. If they really know what they're doing, it can take anywhere from five to ten minutes to analyze the situation, hook the car up and be on their way. I'm not buying her claim that she did anything quickly. In the most perfect of scenarios, we'll say she parks the car and runs in. It just so happens that Mr. Tow-Truck-Man is lurking nearby waiting for a parking violation and spots her making that epic mistake. He immediately pulls up, hooks the car up and bam...he's gone. I don't see that happening in any less than ten minutes, and that's if he's sitting there the whole time. If somebody called it in, it would take extra time to get there in the first place. So when she says quickly, she was lightning-fast...for a sloth. Honestly, what was it she was running in to retrieve anyway? A hair brush? Whatever book she's reading at the time (clearly it wasn't 'Parking For Dummies')? Her refrigerator? Who knows, at least until the story develops a bit further. Nothing is worth quickly grabbing that you would leave your young child unattended for several minutes in your car, period. Even if she parked in a regular spot, that's unacceptable for the estimated amount of time she went inside.

If this book can teach enough people to park correctly,

the author should get the Pulitzer for this. Just sayin'.

Some people will ask, "What about the tow truck driver? Didn't he check inside the vehicle before towing it?" I'm not saying this tow truck driver is perfect by any means. Believe me, though, I've seen these guys at their worst, and I'm sure he's not it. Through the course of a day, these guys want to get paid, and in order to do that, they have to tow an idiot or two. The quicker they tow, the quicker they get paid. I think that's a pretty simple and understandable concept. In this instance, the question is whether or not he checked the backseat for anyone/anything he shouldn't tow along. The argument there is that the rear windows were tinted enough to not get a good enough look inside. I hate to say it, but it's not this guy's fault that the windows were dark. I'm certain that this man would have notified the police immediately if he saw a baby in the backseat. If he did see the baby and was still quick to tow the vehicle, well then all hope might be lost for our world, because that would be an ultimate sign of ignorance, greed and lack of compassion on his part. I highly doubt this is the case. If anything, I feel bad for the guy that towed the car away. Think of how much scrutiny he is under right now for correctly doing his job when some woman couldn't successfully do hers as a mother. It's a sad reality.

Adams Towing...and mobile car washing.

After a brief discussion about it with the roommates, I then posed this question: so you're telling me that she never considered the chance that her son stole the car? I think it's reasonable enough to answer, dammit! Hell, a 21-month old could probably drive better than half of the other buffoons on the road these days, so I am just saying we should consider all possibilities.

Witnesses took this photo of the car leaving the scene.

...that's not true, I can't back that up.

As for this woman being brought up on charges, I am going to be harsh when I say good. Throw the book at her. She did everything wrong in this situation and she should not walk away from this without a costly lesson. She's lucky that her child is safe and still in her custody right now. Going over the facts, then trying to tie her claims to it, one could easily argue she's lying to the authorities to make it seem less serious than it actually is. If it turns out she is lying about anything, let's hope they can find an extra charge or two to bring her up on. Some people will say it was a momentary lack in judgment, but I'm here to ask how many does it take to finally be accountable for screwing up so royally? How many times has she done something so stupid, yet nothing bad happened, so it went unnoticed? Let's not allow that opportunity to arise again. Teach her that this is unacceptable behavior. A slap on the wrist will only enable her to do something worse later on.

If there is an update on this story sometime soon, I'll be glad to share with everyone on a later post. Until then, let's just hope this is an isolated case. We don't need anymore stories like this to come out. Then again...it gives me writing material. Nevermind...bring it on.

D.