The Chesterfield McFisticuffs Blog

The Tow Truck Chronicles

Last week the inevitable finally occurred to my 1993 Ford Escort, the key would not turn in the ignition and therefore the car refused to start. As I was forced to deal with this sudden misfortune, I decided to call CAA to come and try to start it for me. Being an atypical male and knowing absolutely NOTHING about cars, I figured (and hoped) that whomever CAA decided to send over would be able to start the car for me. Considering that this same event had occurred about 5 months ago with me being able to start my car after 45 minutes of cursing, grunting, and punching the ignition and steering wheel, I figured that the prognosis was a good one, since I had a more experienced person around to handle my situation. However, as it always does, it turned out a lot worse than I had hoped for.

After calling CAA, myself and Adam Trinder (who works at the same place as I do), played catch on the road in front of the apartment until CAA's designated tow truck driver arrived within their window of "45 minutes or less". One thing I have learned over the years is that people seldom arrive when they say they will arrive, and when put in a situation that you actually need them to be there, they are even more tardy than usual. This day was no different. After 55 minutes, my cell phone rang to the news that the Tow Truck Driver would arrive in approximately 30 minutes. Now I don't know whether or not CAA employs a mathemetician, but last time I checked, 45 minutes or less subtracted by 55 minutes of waiting time does not equal 30 minutes left until the Tow Truck arrives.

Finally, the driver arrived and took a look at my car. The man that stepped out of that truck looked like a cross between Hulk Hogan, Billy Ray Cyrus, and the Trailer Park Boys. With his neatly coiffed mullet tied back into a pony tail, his arms hanging out of a sleeveless T-Shirt that looked like he had removed said sleeves with a butter knife, and unkempt facial hair, he promptly informed me that he doesn't know anything about cars (Does CAA even interview these guys??) and that he would be happy to tow me to wherever I needed to go. That would have been an acceptable solution if it weren't for the fact that my mechanic is located in Etobicoke, and my car was in North York. Unfortunately I am not the proprietor of a CAA PLUS membership which gives the holder a free tow up to 50 kilometers. No, my limited CAA membership gave me a whole 5 kilometers to tow my car. Thanks CAA, why don't you just move my car to the end of the street and then I'll figure everything out from there.

Obviously, I didn't get the car moved. When I called my boss to inform him that I would be coming in late, he volunteered his CAA PLUS membership to get my car towed back to Etobicoke. Since he had to be there in person for his card to be used, he drove out to North York to do so. The driver that arrived on scene was none other than my mullet-sporting, sleeveless friend from 2 hours previous. He hooked my car up, and then we proceeded on the trip back to Etobicoke, which unfortunately required me to ride shotgun with the aforementioned mullet man.

Now, for those of you who don't know me, I hate awkward silences, especially when riding in a car for a long period of time. It is a 30 minute drive from Ryan's apartment (where I had stayed the previous night) to my mechanic, so I had to come up with some small talk in a hurry. Ironically enough, I hate small talk, so this was a bit of a task for me to accomplish. The following is the sequence of events that occurred while I was in the truck...

After making small talk for about 5 minutes, the driver went on a rant against his former employer, talking about how much he hated the dispatchers and how they always screwed him over on calls. After getting by that, he asked me what I do for a living, so I told him that I am a student and that I work in Rexdale in the summer running a drop-in sports camp for the youth in the area. This answer brought out three especially amusing anecdotes from the driver.

The first of these was in response to me being a student. His exact response was, "Wow, staying in school really is the way to go. I wish I was that smart when I was your age, I would have gone to school for sure." You would have gone to school for sure? School is the smart thing to do? If you're just realizing this now, then you might want to re-organize your priorities in life. I know that on my priority list, "driving a tow truck" falls several spots below "getting an education", "graduating", "getting married", "raising a family", and "washing my hands after using the bathroom". I don't think it takes an intellectually advanced person to realize that a post-secondary education is something that will only benefit you in life.

Next, he elaborated on employment. As if wanting to impress me and prove to me that he was something much more important than a tow truck driver, he revealed a second career that he carried. Not only is this man the most celebrated tow truck driver to ever grace the Earth, he also dabbles in illegal movie duplication. He spent ten minutes of our ride elaborating on the ins and outs of his operation, telling me exactly what system he has, how he breaks the encryption, etc. He told me that he has over 1000 movies in DVD quality, and that he just rents them, duplicates them, prints out the labels, and sells them for 5-10 bucks a pop. I don't know about you, but if I'm him, I don't reveal this kind of detailed information to someone who I've just met and will never see again. All it would take would be for me to get out of the truck after he drops my car off, watch him drive away, whip out my cell phone and dial 1-800-222-TIPS and have a little talk with Crimestoppers. If I do that, a couple hours later, and with me being 100 bucks richer (or whatever they give for tips that lead to an arrest), Chris London of CAA is behind bars and I'm blowing my newfound wealth paying for my new ignition lock in my car.

Lastly, we somehow ended up on the topic of gun violence and teen violence. I think we managed to get onto that topic because of where I work (Rexdale) and the amount of shootings that have occurred in the last month in that area. He went on a soliloquy about how youth these days are so out of control, and they don't know how to take care of themselves and so on and so forth. Then, he revealed to me that he almost ruined his life when he was 18 because he almost made a "small mistake". Before I proceed, let me re-iterate that his exact words were "SMALL MISTAKE". Being curious, I naturally pressed for more information on the topic. Obviously wanting to tell his story, he proceeded. He revealed to me that he used to be a hardcore partier in high school, and that when he was 18, he decided to throw a party in his backyard one night while his parents were away. After drinking too much, he got a little irritated, and decided to go in the house to retrieve his sawed-off shotgun, at which point he tried to shoot three people. Luckily, he missed and was only charged with discharging a weapon in an enclosed area, or something of that nature. That's not exactly my definition of a small mistake! Needless to say, the ride was nearing its end and I was definitely not feeling compelled to stay around and chat more with Chris "the Pyscho" London.

As soon as we pulled into my mechanic's driveway, I was out of that truck faster than a bat out of hell. Needless to say, the next time my car breaks down, I'm holding out for a clean cut, nicely dressed tow truck driver. Either that, or I'll just abandon the car.

posted by Chesterfield McFisticuffs III @ 3:57 p.m.