Honolulu Weekly

This wasn’t set up to be a two part-series. Hell, it probably wasn’t worth one article. But after the paper hit the streets, I was besieged by people who wanted the rest of the story. “And hey, where’d you park today?” they’d ask, laughing.

“Why the sudden interest in where my vehicle is?” I’d shoot back. “And just where were you on Friday after the bar closed?”

In case you missed last issue, there was a comedy of errors involving my car, two slashed tires, a lack of response from my insurance company’s roadside assistance, 10 towing companies that refused to answer their phones until a decent hour and a hoarding of street parking for the construction workers, who apparently get their calls answered for towing. Add to all of this that the wind was supposed to blow us completely off the island, making us perhaps join the throngs of chickens that overrun Kauai, whilst causing government panic and school closures. Oh, wait. I meant tragedy of errors. Sorry.

Besides the act of somebody randomly slashing my tires, what made me furious was the tow job. I spent two-and-a-half hours of being on hold with my insurance company, and if there’s any truth to those stories about cell phones causing tumors, I’m gonna have the motherload of all gliomas. Then there were all the tow truck companies who apparently don’t function between the hours of four and six in the morning. Sometime between 6:20 and 6:50am, somebody at the construction company apparently noticed the car with two flat tires and a can of Fix-a-Flat sitting next to it. My guess is they thought it would be funny to make somebody’s already-bad day worse. I say that because, one, there was still plenty of parking on the street (at least four empty spots when I was there), and two, they let all the construction people have the day off.

I took the cab ride over to Sand Island and paid the impound fee, meaning I had access to a car that still had two flat tires. The woman behind the counter (at least I think it was a woman—hard to tell past all the bulletproof glass and wire) pointed to a store three buildings down that sold tires. I marched over and explained the situation. The mechanic said I needed to get the car towed over to the shop.

“I’ve been trying to get a tow truck for the last three hours,” I said slowly. “If I had been able to get one, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

So I called my insurance company to get the car towed half a block. This time, it took five minutes to get through. That’s when my phone went dead because of the time I spent on hold earlier.

I explained the situation again to the mechanic. He acquiesced, probably because I looked like I was either going to collapse from exhaustion or strangle someone. Perhaps both. He said he’d walk the tires over and bring a jack with him. It was the first break I had in 25 hours. Unfortunately, it was not the last. Turns out, one of the bolts was damaged, possibly from the towing, and the mechanic would have to break it off to change the tire.

“So what does that mean?” I asked.

“Well, you’ll be able to drive home,” he explained. “But, you know—drive slow. Try not to swerve.”

So I was allowed back into the impound yard. There was my vehicle, with bright, new, $200 tires—and a ticket on the windshield.

I swear, when I removed the ticket, I thought the car would literally fall to pieces, like after the final car chase in The Blues Brothers.

What’s the point? You can stop saying Happy New Year to me, thanks. Night Shift will resume its place as a bar-review column next week. You can drive.