Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

(part 1)

The police bounced me to impound. Impound said they didn't have it, then they said they did. Towed for parking tickets.

I knew I had outstanding tickets, and was trying to round up enough $$ to pay them in time to get my tags renewed -- they'd warned me about not being able to renew until the fines were paid, but I never got a tow warning. (Note that they may have mailed such a warning, considering how much mail I get for someone in a different zip code as well as how much I get addressed to a different street, but I didn't get it.) I don't know whether I'll have to pay off all the tickets, or just the ones old enough to be flagged at MVA, but I'm guessing ransoming the car back will mean all outstanding tickets ...

I had finally (with a check that just arrived for a recent gig) gotten about enough to pay the oldest tickets, but not the whole kit and kaboodle (which includes a few that I was pretty sure I had paid, but my win/loss record arguing with bureacracies is not good). I really thought I had another week or two to get things sorted out, and had planned to try to pay the flagged tickets on the web this afternoon. Now I've got a $195 impound fee that pushes this mess -- plus the cost of tag renewal by the end of the month and license renewewal in the next six days) quite out of reach. They've made it harder for me to pay what I already owed.

Impound gave me a number to call to find out how much I'd have to pay in total. The automated system there estimated the wait-on-hold time at 68 minutes. This might not be the best call to make from a cell phone...

Okay, okay [breathe ... breathe again], this is in most ways not as bad as having the car stolen -- this way there's at least a possibility of getting the car back at some point. But at this point I'm still pretty thoroughly screwed.

Time to beg for help. I've got about a hundred bucks in my checking account. The last warning/reminder notice I got from the city says I have $508 of outstanding fines (much of which is late-penalties for tickets I'd thought I'd already paid, but hadn't managed to find the old check carbons yet to match up citation numbers), all for not moving the car quickly enough on street-cleaning days when the street-sweeper never came anyhow. (Rule's a rule, but that adds insult to injury.) And now I can't find the registration-renewal forms to look up how much a new sticker will cost. License renewal is $30. I folks are willing & able to help bail me out of this mess, I have a PayPal account ... [ETA: it's dglenn@radix.net]

The voice of despair in my head is saying that maybe I shouldn't have paid my overdue auto-insurance premium last night after all. That I just can't own a car and be mobile. The voice of utter panic is asking y'all whether anyone can give me a ride to Rockville tonight for rehearsal and to Pirate Feast on Saturday.

I am so fucked. Help?