Having been so rudely awakened, I sprang vaguely forth from my bed to have a peer out the window, discovering a far too obvious truth, namely, that a tow truck was attempting to abscond with my car. Fortunately, the terrible positioning of the parking lot is such that, while it's possible to tow a car from it, it tends to require a degree in advanced fourth-dimensional mathematics. Thus, I was able to get dressed at a leisurely pace, put on coffee, and achieve a state of full awareness before ambling out to chat with the poor bastards who were only beginning to realize that extracting the car would no doubt take a full morning's work.
"Huzzah, sirs," I exclaimed in cheery tone, "Whyfore are you attempting to abscond with my source of transportation?"
This seemed to non-plus them, as, we southerners being polite and all, they were hoping that this early hour would have allowed them to rustle my hapless auto with a minimum of fuss.
"It'll cost you $35 to get your car back," came the reply, as, faced with the task of the contradiction of towing a car that clearly belonged to someone in the building, as I had just walked out of the door in front of them, and orders to do that very thing, they reverted to type.
"Zounds," I commented, realizing that explaining that my vehicle was meant to be here would do little good.
As the car was not going anywhere fast regardless, the mechanic helpfully added, "You should have gotten a decal."
At last, the truth of the matter had become clear. With a recent change in ownership, the decal system had changed once more. Notification had probably been delivered by taping the decals to the doors of the residents during the period of my absence, and it had been absconded with by some fiend for the purpose of keeping an extra vehicle.
A short discussion ensued over this, but it was obvious that no tales of scull-duggery would deter these agents from removing my auto unless I could come up with something better. Mind racing, I pondered it, eventually settling for "Why don't I pay you the $35 now, so that you can get yourselves hence, agents of darkness and dread?"
The dread agent of automobile appropriation seemed somewhat nonplussed, once more, as this was Grad Student Land, where people simply don't have any money. "As long as it's cash," he insisted, having no doubt heard the Jeff Foxworthy skit ("Oh, I can write you a check? Sure! I thought you wanted money!").
"Fiend!" I remarked, but coughed up the cash, during which time the other mechanic gave up trying to figure out how to tow the car and wandered back to put in his two cents ("You should have gotten a decal." "Yes, yes. We've established this.").
Having bribed the agents of annoyance, I shooed them away, and they fled the approaching dawn (after all, it's kind of rude to steal cars when people might notice). Clearly, there was only one thing to do - track down the resident manager and mercilessly quirk an eyebrow at him until he coughed up the necessary decal. Well, eventually, anyway. Another damn decal? Why can't they choose something that works and stick with it?
At least I know why the parking lot always seems so empty these days...
In other news, it's Gina's birthday. Say "Happy birthday, Gina". Good monkey. Have a banana.
In world news today, there's news that we've stopped a Russian tanker in the Persian Gulf to try and determine wether they were buying oil from Iraq without permission. The Russians, of course, are understandably rather miffed that we've boarded one of their ships. Oh, good. Let's piss off the Russians even more. Who's the brain boy who came up with this one?
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