Towing

Friday Rick and I headed to Virginia Beach.
Our good friends live there and wanted their tub refinished.
He called Rick and asked for a contractor down in VA Beach.
Rick said, "let's take a day off and go there" A sort of  'day off'.

We left at 8a after we dropped off the dog.
We had to drive in Rick's E150 toxic truck.
The small van he uses for cabinets. So each vehicle is filled with the items he needs so taking our car was a no-go as far as he was concerned.

I hate his toxic truck. (that is my name for it) The smells alone. 
He sprayed something that was a professional odor remover and by God, it worked. But it's not a nice ride when driving 4 hrs. And there is no radio. I got in and as we are silently riding down the road I said, "So am I going to have to talk to you on this ride since there is no music?"  
He of course laughed and said, "hell no, just sit there and be quiet. That's okay that you don't want to talk to me and you hurt my feelings" 
Yeah, then we both laughed out loud!

We arrived at 11:55am.
I brought lunch and dessert.
Rick immediately went upstairs to work.
We 3 began to drink and eat. 
(I did a few callbacks after checking my voicemail for work)

I made these ham and cheese sliders that everyone went crazy over.
Once I got there she put them in the oven and they were quite happy with them. Whew.
I also made a brownie with a caramel center that made them really happy. God those looked good. Too rich for Rick. But Joe and Paul moaned while eating them. "too rich" is not a combo of words ever uttered by me for any reason, food or money.

I drank wine and had a Lara Bar while they all ate. 
It's amazing I need to lose weight seriously.

Rick was done by 2:30pm and then he ate his lunch.
We sat around laughing and talking and just catching up.
It was so nice.

I used to work with Joe. 
He was the best co-worker and account manager I had.
He never let me down. He was great with customers and as the salesperson of the account, he made my job easier and I loved him for that. But most of all he never fails to make me laugh. 
The stories this man can tell. 
I never ever saw him without a smile until his wife got breast cancer.
You saw the stress and pain on his face and it was gut-wrenching. 
Thankfully she has been cancer free now for 8 years. They both smile all the time now. 

We went to our hotel and got cleaned up.
We showered and sat around a bit until we were to meet them for dinner.

We went to a fun Mexican place they loved. 
They insisted before we went down there that we were being paid by dinner and drinks since we told them they weren't paying us. 
This was very nice of them.
We had a very nice time. 
The food was good and the company was great.
Here they are at dinner.

After dinner, we were watching all these young people in the parking lot taking selfies and we all had a good laugh at their expense. 
Then Paula said we old farts should take one.
Rick laughed and told them we aren't too good at that. 
They laughed at the story of how Rick cuts me off since I am short.
This is the selfie we old folks took while the millennials were probably thinking we were weird.

I knew Joe was a couple years older than me but there is no way I thought he was 10 years older than me. Man, he looks good at 71/72. I still think if you have a young spirit (or immature like me) you tend to look younger. 
This time it is Joe's face that is obstructed. He is covered from the shadow of the phone. But hey I'm in it this time.
I was going to wear a black turtle neck. I changed before we left. 
I'm glad I did, I would look like just a head if I had worn that in this selfie.
That would have been funny though.

We stayed at the Westin hotel. It was a very nice hotel and it gave a wonderful rate for me being a Marriott member as well as an old fart. Can't get hotels that cheap so we were thrilled...until morning when we were leaving.

We went to take our luggage out to the truck before we met my cousin for breakfast. We could not find our truck. We were laughing and walking around the garage on level P2 and P3. We both were 100% positive we were in P2."

We went to the front desk and told them we couldn't find our vehicle, feeling mighty silly let me tell you. They called security and asked if any vehicles had been towed. We were told there were none towed. Rick went back a 3rd time to look around. He came back and said to the front desk, my vehicle is not here. Can we call the towing company? We did. They towed us. Great.

Rick and I went back to P2. There was a sign at the 1st or last depending on your direction. The sign was on the front wall as you would see it when you pulled into the parking spot. The sign said permit parking on this spot. No other signs for the rest of the row. So we assumed it was that spot only. There were vehicles in other spots and no signs. 
Apparently, the whole row is permit parking.  Why wouldn't they put that on each spot you can't park in? Or paint the floor of the spot saying reserved or some such thing?

We saw on the permit sign in small print that they only take cash and it is $145.  !@#$ is how we were feeling.  Now we need to get to an ATM.  When Rick spoke to the tow company the man said, "do you know people pay $20,000 for their annual parking spot?" 
Rick said he didn't care, he parked where he shouldn't have and we just need to know how and where to pick it up. The guy kept lecturing and I really thought this was going to get ugly. Rick doesn't get mad easily, but when he does, look out. 

So instead of breakfast, my cousin takes us to our vehicle. 
Then the creep says it will be $225. We did not have that in cash. 
We had $210.
Rick asked what he was trying to pull, the sign says $145. 
He said, "well we needed a special tool to tow you since it is a big van." 
Rick replied, "that is your job, to tow whatever, you quote $145 and that is what I should pay. That tool was with you, you stated as much, so it's not like you went out of your way for this tow."  He is now livid. 
I touch his arm and he leans down. I whisper give him what you have you know you aren't going to win and get us the !#@$ out of here.
The guy took $210. Surprise right? 

Two days before we left Rick said he felt like something was going to go wrong with the truck. He asked about our AAA. I said we decided to now renew because we could never use it for anything. He says should we get it for this trip? I told him if the truck broke down they only will tow it 200 miles and we will be further than that. I called to verify I was correct. So I talked him out of it. 

We didn't need AAA, we needed signs to say you couldn't park there.
So again his "feelings" were correct and something did happen to the truck, it was towed. Towing is far better than breaking down that is for sure.
But seriously $210?

Rick came home and wrote a letter to the BBB, a review on Google and then reached out to the company and only got voicemail. 
He will try again today I'm certain because he is a man possessed right now.

Before we left to pick up our van I mentioned to the nice woman at the front desk who was helping us that perhaps they put that sign on each spot. Nowhere did it say it was the full row. It just stated as you pulled into that spot that it was permit parking.
Nothing was painted on the floor of the spot or the front wall. 
Only on the 1st parking spot of the row.
She said she thought it was on all spots. She did not believe me and actually went to P2 and came back apologizing and said, 'no wonder we get so many tows.' 
Ya think?

Rick was not a happy camper on the way home because he kept dwelling on it.
He kept bitching about it and truthfully I was getting tired of this and didn't want this energy for the ride home.
I finally made him laugh and told him I was going to start singing and singing loudly since I am sick of hearing him talk about this and the radio doesn't work. 
He stopped, my singing can do that to a person.