Good Day/Bad Day

Today was one of those mixed-bag kind of days:

I found out in the early afternoon that Dick's building at work 9and all of the buildings around it) were without power. Apparently, it had been going in and out all morning, but the last time it happened, it lasted for hours.

so, that's not good.

It's hard to work on computers all day without power.

Dick called me around 1:00 telling me about the power outage, and asking if I was free for lunch. His boss was in town (from Seattle) for meetings all day, but since they couldn't get any work done without power, they decided to come to San Francisco for lunch. He asked if I would be able to pick them up from the Caltrain station.

I picked them, and we headed to the Ferry Building for lunch.

We had a very yummy lunch at Slanted Door!

Very good.

We had parked in a metered spot on the Embarcadero, and had until 3:00 - which gave us about an hour for lunch.

A few minutes before 3:00, I offered to run down to the car to check on it (or feed the meter), but we were just finishing up, and were waiting for the bill, so Dick and his boss both agreed that we could all wait, and we'd only be a few minutes late, and I'm sure it'll be just fine....

You know where this is going, right?

We get back to our car at 3:05, only to see a line of tow trucks on the Embarcadero, and yes, there's my MINI before towed away in front of our eyes.

:(

Crap.

We all three failed to noticed the "No Parking after 3:00" sign hiding behind a tree a few cars down. Now, I will say this for the SF towing company they are very efficient. Go figure.


So, we get the information about where we're supposed to pick my car up, and take a cab across town....

I walked in, was helped right away, was asked for the make/model of my car, gave them my drivers license, they look up my car, and print up my bill:

SF Admin Fee - Excluding Tickets: $155.75
$ - Extra Dolly or Flatbed Fee $43.75
Tow - Passenger Vehicle: $174.25
Passenger Storage Vehicle: $0.00

Total: $373.75

Ouch.

..and you know there's more coming...

She gives me my receipt, directs me to the car lot, where I had another guy my receipt.

He tracks down my car (which really, was there for less than 5 minutes) and brings it to me...

...with a parking ticket on the windshield:

Parking Ticket: $83.00

Grand Total: $456.75

nice.

So, there you have it. One of those days.