Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

The Tow

I called at noon about a tow for the white Volkswagen Beetle with the "The Who" sticker on the back bumper, which had a glitch of some sort in its computer and would not start. Doesn't it figure that you spend an arm and half a leg on fixing the computers, oxygen sensor, plutonium-powered generator, and some other stuff; and a month later, they are there looking to take the rest of the leg.

The tow truck guy showed up, as promised, "within an hour" (That's tow truck lingo, I guess.) at 2:30 with a 23,000 pound (10,000 kilo) flatbed truck to carry the Beetle to its ultimate destination. Of course, I made the mistake of telling everyone involved that I had to make the 50-mile trip to Sandusky by 3:30. After the third call to the repair department at the car dealer, someone there finally believed me when I said I needed a rental car and that I would pay for it.

I digress here, but this is a temporal displacement of facts of a minor magnitude because the tow (which is the title) is what the story is about. When I arrived at the VW dealer, the rental car guy pounced on me with all the paperwork, having me sign here and here and here and initial there and here and over here. Since when do you get a 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 4X4 SLT extended cab, fully-appointed pick-up truck when you drop off a VW Beetle, especially one with "The Who" sticker on it. This is a huge fucking truck. Whether it would fit in the garage and whether I had to turn into the "Trucks and Busses" lot of the turnpike rest stop would be answered later.

On the turnpike, I passed a Ford F-150 pick-up and waved to the driver, for we had much in common now, except mine was much bigger, extended even, which worked very well under severe conditions with greater power and which had a greater capacity to handle the long haul. I'm sure that on cold nights spent all alone in need of getting to the Heights (that's an area higher than the Flats), I had greater cranking power to get that engine up and firing.

He gave me the finger. Nice. Whatever.

Sorry, I was largely distracted got side-tracked. Where were we ... oh yeah ... the flat bed with the chains.

The tow guy arrived with his flatbed tow truck and hauled the disabled Beetle up the tilted bed.

Barry, the tow truck guy, is 48 years old. He and his wife, who is 47, by the way, have three children. His youngest daughter was born two days after his 22-year-old daughter was married last year. Yes, his youngest daughter is 15 months old. Barry claims that there is a huge difference between disposable diapers now as opposed to 20 years ago. But it is, he claims, much easier raising an infant now, having had the benefit of much hindsight and being financially secure.

Barry's 17-year-old son will be graduating from high school; and, of course, Barry wants him to go to college and does not want him to be a tow truck driver. Barry's son was taken aback, it seems, by Barry's demand, pointing out that Barry is a tow truck driver and has a college degree. Barry decided to leave the rat race in 1989, having been a chemical engineer for over 20 years. He liked the towing business -- and he didn't take "plastic;" so, we pulled into the bank so I could get some cash.

We talked about the increase in violence in society -- he didn't think that the Justice Department statistics were accurate and doesn't believe that video games and movies are the cause of increased violence. It's just the way societies evolve, he said, pointing to the rise in violence in the latter history of the Roman Empire, along with the increase in the spread of diseases in that period as compared to the spread of incurable and/or untreatable diseases now, such as hepatitis, AIDS, West Nile virus, Ebola, although he said that the dangers from the latter two are overblown by the government to cover up its ineptitude in the research for the cure for AIDS inasmuch as that disease was designated by Reagan and Bush the First as the scourge of and cure for homosexuality.

We pulled into the VW dealer with the car on the flatbed. He filled out the invoice, figuring the tax, newly instituted last week, on his clipboard the old-fashioned way, without the aid of a calculator.

I paid him and thanked him and wished him well with his infant daughter and teenage son.

Posted by Bill at August 26, 2003 04:22 PM