The Big Tow

Michael has always had big toes, but now he has had "the big tow." Trust me, he likes the ones on his feet better.
On Friday morning, I called him to see if he would like us to pick him up on the way to the doctor's office for Abby's test so he would not have to move his car from the parking lot. Instead, he had parked on the street and was making a few trips to feed the meter so he could have an easier time leaving. As we were walking out the door, the phone rang and it was Michael. He said, "Sarah, now I don't want you to be mad...." Don't you just love conversations that start out that way? I asked what was going on and he informed me that he went outside the building and that the car was gone. Since it was broad daylight, the Honda probably had not been stolen, but instead had been towed.
According to the City of St. Louis, Michael had 4 unpaid parking tickets (three were supposedly from 2005). We know he has paid off tickets since then, and only one of these seemed to be legitimate. Now we are going through old check stubs to see if we can prove that we paid them. What we cannot figure out is why they would not just put a tire lock device on his car and leave it there for more than a few hours before towing it.
So since he was car-less, we picked Michael up, went to the doctor, and then headed to the tow yard. When Michael entered the office and described our car, they replied, "Oh, that car." Never a good response.
It turns out that when they were trying to tow his car that they punctured the tire. Their next step was to break into our locked car and put the spare on. They informed him that he would have to bring his car in on Monday to have a new tire put on (they are not making money on this deal, since it was a special tire they had to get).
On Father's Day, we noticed that the seal to the passenger's side door was cut - apparently something they damaged when they broke into our car. The paint was also scratched. They declined to tell us about these two damages, even though I am sure they had to have known about them.
At this point, we have had an estimate on repairing the door seal and paint scratch. Today we received the notice from the City that the car had been towed. Hopefully we will get all of this resolved, but it is never easy working with the City of St. Louis!
The picture above is completely unrelated to this story, I just figured I would post another cute photo of Abby since I was making a new entry. That is a picture of her last weekend on the bike trail. I just love the beautiful green background and the way that she looks in the natural light.