Attack of the Stupid Day
We have survived Stupid Day...
I tweeted about this, but for those who didn't see that, we came home late Thursday night and the parking lot was almost full. We found a space (or at least thought we had) and parked, and thought nothing more of it (beyond being annoyed by the number of cars in the parking lot that really should not be that full...) Friday morning we got up late, finally dragged our asses out to go to work, and the car was gone. Yep, towed. Because apparently that space wasn't really a space - it was a 'no parking' area next to the transformer, with a single faded white line around it. In the dark, it was so faint it just looked like the normal parking space divider - we never even saw the horizontal line making it an enclosed box. AND, the no-parking area didn't have diagonal stripes through it the way they usually do (and the way all other no-parking spaces do in the lot). With the bright sun overhead at noon, it was obvious, but at night? Fuck, no.
So, we hiked up the hill to the rental office (after watching someone a couple of buildings over being arrested by the cops... O_o) to find out they were closed for lunch until 2pm. Yay. Called the emergency number, got the number of the towing company, then called them. They closed at 3pm and we had to go pick it up that day (or have no car all weekend AND pay an additional $15 a day), so we called a cab. Got into the cab around 12:20pm and headed off to the location in Rockville (must be freaking nice to have a towing company 11 miles away, so they can charge that much extra for towing mileage, PLUS the taxi fare ended up being nearly $30...)
Went past the Rockville Metro station as the whole big hoo-hah was going on with the person who got trapped by a train - we could tell it was something BAD because there was a helicopter hovering overhead and not moving anywhere, plus TONS of emergency & police vehicles. We must have been going past *just* as they were lifting the train & getting him out, because there were firemen all over the tracks. http://rockville.wusa9.com/news/news/man-pulled-under-train-rockville-metro-station/54734
ANYway, finally got to the impound lot, and had to pay $126 to get the car back (our saved up gas $$ is all gone except for $20. Ouch. That's not even one fill-up now.). At that point, since we were planning to go argue with the rental office about how we had no way to know it wasn't a legal spot, we gave up on going to work, because it was 1:30 and by the time we got back home, it would just be as they reopened from lunch. Going back to Rockville for work after that would be another half hour, so... no.
The manager listened to us and said she agreed and she probably would have thought it was a valid space, too, so we have to send a copy of the receipt and the photos I took (heh.) and we'll get a refund, but still, what a stupid fucking waste of a day.
On the plus side, we didn't have as crappy a day as some people did! O_o
And today, our toilet tank isn't refilling with water after it's flushed. -.-
I tweeted about this, but for those who didn't see that, we came home late Thursday night and the parking lot was almost full. We found a space (or at least thought we had) and parked, and thought nothing more of it (beyond being annoyed by the number of cars in the parking lot that really should not be that full...) Friday morning we got up late, finally dragged our asses out to go to work, and the car was gone. Yep, towed. Because apparently that space wasn't really a space - it was a 'no parking' area next to the transformer, with a single faded white line around it. In the dark, it was so faint it just looked like the normal parking space divider - we never even saw the horizontal line making it an enclosed box. AND, the no-parking area didn't have diagonal stripes through it the way they usually do (and the way all other no-parking spaces do in the lot). With the bright sun overhead at noon, it was obvious, but at night? Fuck, no.
So, we hiked up the hill to the rental office (after watching someone a couple of buildings over being arrested by the cops... O_o) to find out they were closed for lunch until 2pm. Yay. Called the emergency number, got the number of the towing company, then called them. They closed at 3pm and we had to go pick it up that day (or have no car all weekend AND pay an additional $15 a day), so we called a cab. Got into the cab around 12:20pm and headed off to the location in Rockville (must be freaking nice to have a towing company 11 miles away, so they can charge that much extra for towing mileage, PLUS the taxi fare ended up being nearly $30...)
Went past the Rockville Metro station as the whole big hoo-hah was going on with the person who got trapped by a train - we could tell it was something BAD because there was a helicopter hovering overhead and not moving anywhere, plus TONS of emergency & police vehicles. We must have been going past *just* as they were lifting the train & getting him out, because there were firemen all over the tracks. http://rockville.wusa9.com/news/news/man-pulled-under-train-rockville-metro-station/54734
ANYway, finally got to the impound lot, and had to pay $126 to get the car back (our saved up gas $$ is all gone except for $20. Ouch. That's not even one fill-up now.). At that point, since we were planning to go argue with the rental office about how we had no way to know it wasn't a legal spot, we gave up on going to work, because it was 1:30 and by the time we got back home, it would just be as they reopened from lunch. Going back to Rockville for work after that would be another half hour, so... no.
The manager listened to us and said she agreed and she probably would have thought it was a valid space, too, so we have to send a copy of the receipt and the photos I took (heh.) and we'll get a refund, but still, what a stupid fucking waste of a day.
On the plus side, we didn't have as crappy a day as some people did! O_o
And today, our toilet tank isn't refilling with water after it's flushed. -.-