How I Roll on Friday Nights

So I’m living at Steiner & McAlister, a block from Alamo Square park — The famous Painted Ladies photo? There. — and this being SF, I have to move my pickup every week because I can’t afford apartment parking.

One week I’m late getting to the chore, which is potentially a major disaster, since parking in SF is like musical chairs, and you don’t want to be caught without a space, lest you end up driving for an hour looking for Jesus. But — mirabile dictu! — there’s a spot open on a dark side street just off the park.

A few days later I return to move the pickup again — and it’s gone!

Towed, I learn.

Because I had inadvertently parked in a driveway, which I didn’t notice, because the garage door looked like the side of the house.

So, yeah, clever architects. Congratulations! And fuck you.

I can’t wait to move back to SF so I don’t even need a car.

@nojo: Wait, you drove (drive?) a pickup? You don’t strike me as the type.

Oh please. As if. You got towed? Boo hoo. Park on the UWS. Or the Village. Or Midtown.

And BTW, this is what real estate looks like.

@SanFranLefty: Toy pickup. S-10, with canopy. Convenient for hauling shit, when you live on a mountain. Not so convenient in town.

@hunkamonkiman: You still might need a car here. Muni drivers and subway operators just voted to authorize a strike if negotiations with the City break down. Then again, 90% of people who regularly riding Muni seem to be hoping that they go on strike (which is prohibited by their contract), that they can be fired and replaced. As one commenter on SFist noted, “I’m a labor supporter who has never crossed a picket line but I will dance a jig across this one.”

@nojo: If that had happened to me, not only would I never forget it (even if I later developed Alzheimer’s), but I would also tell people all about it on the slightest provocation.

@lynnlightfoot: It makes a good SF story. The other part is the bus rides to city hall to pay the fine and then to the tow lot, which was an adventure in itself.

That, plus discovering they broke the window crank to get into the pickup.

@nojo: Ahh, yes, the infamous tow lot under the highway and behind the Hall of Justice. Did you have to go there with $400 in cash only, like they require today?

@SanFranLefty: Y’know, I don’t remember whether I had to pay cash, or even the amount. Just long Muni rides to the boonies. And trying to scrape the tow-lot markings from the windshield.