It was a rather sleepy, slodgy day for me, here at the Landfill on the Planet Ann Arbor. Until about 5:00 PM when the GG* called me to tell me that our beloved Dogha had been towed. He and the UU went down to see a Lions game in the beeyootiful city of DayTwa today and I’m gonna let him guest blahg here tonight to tell his story. So here he is.

The Lions Win!!! I lose.

We parked near the intersection of Winder St. and I-75 Frontage Rd immediately North of Lions stadium. It is a short walk to the other side of the Fisher freeway to get to the stadium. We have been legally parking at this location for many years. Hundreds of vehicle owners have been parking in this location for many years – we even recognize some of the faces.

Note: I did not pay the street bum who wanted to collect a parking fee for parking on a public street.

Over 100 cars were absolutely, 100%, legally parked on Winder and I-75 Frontage. Hundreds were parked on nearby streets. There were no signs, warning or other information that would suggest that there was any problem legally parking on these very wide streets.

We had a great time at the game and the Lions absolutely murdered the Rams with a 44-6 win. When was the last time they looked good?

What a great weekend. Blue skies and an Indian summer. State beat Michigan in an excellent game in Ann Arbor.

We exited Lion stadium, walked across the freeway, and found an empty street – empty except for a line of taxis and their drivers waiting to inform folks that their cars were towed to the West side of Detroit.

Okayyyyy. We gathered other towing victims and shared the cost of a long slow taxi ride to Boulevard & Trumble Towing.

When we got to the towing office, there was a stuffy hot box of an office loaded with line other towing victims waiting for processing with a v e r y s l o w woman on the other side of bullet proof glass to process our claims for our “stolen” vehicles.

When you finally get your turn at the bullet proof window you have to identify your vehicle. She then tells you that you must show her the registration and proof of insurance. Since those items are in the car, you have to go outside and walk around and across a very large parking lot to retrieve them from you cars.

Then, you get to wait in line all over again.

Next, the very slow woman checks to see if the registration and insurance paperwork are up-to-date. Huh? My paperwork was up to date – if it isn’t they charge an extra $35.00 for not having up to date insurance (I don’t know the cost of old registration or not having the documents).

The taxis cost $5, the towing was $75, and the City of Detroit ticket was $30. The ticket said, “Improper Parking Moving Lane of Traffic”. The street was a very wide dead end street with plenty of room for parking on both sides plus room for two-way traffic.

There were hundreds of victims in this shake-down. I learned that earlier in the day the police arranged for the towing company to come and pick up cars after the streets were full of vehicles.

The cars were legally parked and there was not urgent need for towing on a dead end street.

So.

I betcha feel awfully sorry for me. Wimper. Wimper.

I don’t feel sorry for me. I feel really bad for the stadium worker victims that had their earnings eaten up by this shakedown. We found out that this was a popular parking location for stadium workers. I feel sorry for the folks who borrowed cars or had incomplete documentation and could not provide proper notarized documents that would allow them to recover their stolen cars.

Police corruption and City of Detroit corruption is very healthy. Detroit is a mess.

Will the Detroit Lions influence the City of Detroit to stop this corruption?

Okay. He also sent me a pic of the extremely slow woman who was processing all of this stuff at the towing company. At first I was all “yes, I will post her picture.” But I decided I could not do that. I may be wrong but I think that she is just a tool of the folks that employ her. So. For now, I will not post her photooo.

* The GG, aka @tmotu, aka my long-suffering husband and father of the beach urchins.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 10th, 2010 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.