City Car-nappings and Parking Predicaments

Last week, after putting in a long day at work, showing up late to beach volleyball, and then playing a rather humiliating game (my talents do not lie in sports), I was shuffling home in a bit of a funk; I decided that I needed to do something to boost my spirits. When I remembered that my favorite pair of heels was sitting in the backseat of my car, I decided that I would retrieve them for a quick pick-me-up. See, in my head, wearing a sharp outfit and heels to work the next day would completely compensate for the fact that I couldn't set a volleyball to save my life.

As I headed away from the beach, and closer to my car, reminding myself that I'd joined the volleyball league only to have fun, I was really starting to feel better. As I closed in on my parking spot, however, a sinking feeling overtook me. Expecting to find my colorful little car, I suddenly realized that a string of gray autos lined the entire area where mine should have been. Hmmm...

Now, I knew for a fact that I had parked on Astor. I had made a mental note of it when I'd parked there a few days before. Trying to rationalize away the panic in my chest, I decided that perhaps I had parked farther from the intersection than I remembered. Okay, we'll stroll a little farther. A little farther. Maybe just a little closer to the... dead. end. Crap. I'd gotten towed.

I knew immediately why. The signs were posted all up the street: "No Parking 9 am - 1 pm Tuesdays: Street Cleaning. TOW ZONE." And I knew that some part of me had known this when I parked there, but my own stubbornness had gotten the best of me. Because the fact was, I had somehow registered both that these signs existed, and what they meant, when I'd found the parking spot. But, the thing was, it was such an event to find that parking spot. The weekend my dad and I drove from Toledo to move my things into my apartment, we faced a never-ending battle with parking. In fact, the best parking we found all weekend was with the U-haul trailer in the alley, where we had free license to park during the moving process. Once we dumped the trailer (thank God Dad came along to drive that thing around the city--you couldn't have paid me to do it), we were forced to face the perpetual parking challenge.

We wound up feeding meters until 9 pm on Saturday, and then getting up early Sunday to find a spot for my car (we resigned to leaving Dad's at the meter). So, after spending about thirty bucks on meter-feeding, and an hour and a half trolling for parking, when I found that spot on Astor I was determined. Determined never to move my car again unless absolutely necessary. Determined (apparently) not to see any signs that might potentially indicate that leaving my car parked on Astor forever was not a possibility. I was in denial. So, I gleefully headed away from my car, and didn't think about parking again until two and a half days later when I came to retrieve my heels.

Now, while all this information was replaying in my mind, I started to feel the urge to cry, despite the fact that I knew this was the farthest thing from a solution. I held myself together until I reached my apartment. I even held it together pretty well when I called KT and asked him to cart me over to the impound. But when I called my mom, I lost it. I was sure I had made a mistake not looking into parking before moving downtown. Maybe I had made a mistake moving there. Maybe everyone said it was so expensive to live in the Gold Coast because you spend so much in parking tickets and car tows. Maybe I was just an impostor in the big city. Maybe I was over-reacting.

I was grateful that KT came over that night and drove me around to all the non-permit spots in the area where I could park in a pickle, and made proactive suggestions. The following night we retrieved my car from impound on lower Lower Wacker (Wacker has, like, four levels--did other people know this?), where I discovered that the city had added insult to injury by leaving a whopping parking ticket on my windshield in addition to the pile of money I'd just forfeited to the tow guys. With a few more rolls of my eyes and considerably lighter pockets, I followed KT back to my neighborhood where his parking radar found me a spot near my building (I don't know anyone who has more parking luck that KT, except maybe my dad), on a street that gets swept only once a month. My car has been sitting in that exact place for almost a week. I go and check on it. I still feel a little nervous about parking and a little worried for my cute little car. This time I am determined to see any and all posted signs and to follow the street sweeping schedule online. I am determined to protect my car from the wiles of the Chicago parking police. Fingers crossed.