Blogtember: In Which I am Dumb

My dad and I the day I bought my precious car

All around, it isn't fun to make mistakes. But, some mistakes are more awful than others. Forgetting to buy someone a birthday gift is one thing or failing a math test, but losing an iPod or getting your car towed is another. It seems as though I have made a lot of mistakes with cars in my three years of driving, like getting parking tickets at school, getting a parking ticket in San Francisco, side swiping the garage as I was backing up, anddddd getting my car towed. From outside my house. Yep, I'd say that one takes the cake.

And now you are wondering how I could do such a foolish thing like that. I have no idea. I've been asking myself that same thing ever since it happened back in May. I live in a condo, and there are designated areas that I am allowed to park. Since we don't have any extra parking spots that belong to us, I am able to park with a special permit. This permit allows me to park in the spots marked 'visitor,' even though I am a resident.

So, on this unfavorable night in May, I had just spent a few hours that afternoon washing my car. It was sparkling. I got home late that night from going to the movies with Dai, and I wasn't feeling well at all. When I was parking my car that night, I decided against parking in my usual spot with the awful tree that drops crap all over my car. And I didn't spend hours cleaning it for nothing, you know what I mean? So I decided to park about a block away, in a spot that was safe from the evil trees.

Gosh, that was really dumb. The next morning, I went out in my pajamas to get something from my car. And then I freaked out. Because it wasn't there. How could this be?! It must have been stolen! So I hauled my butt home and burst into the house calling for my dad. He was shocked, and then asked me if there was a sign in front of the spot I had parked. I quickly said 'no,' but then realized... There was a sign. The sign read "Visitor parking only. Residents subject to immediate tow." And then I got yelled at.

Now, I don't know if I was just delirious from not feeling well, or if I truly thought that I was exempt from that sign since I had a parking permit to park in visitor parking. Well, at this point it didn't really matter whatsoever, because I screwed up. And my car was towed in the middle of the night. And it cost me nearly $400 to get it back. That really hurt. One of the things that makes me so mad about it, though, is that since I have a resident sticker on my car, I made it so easy for them. They didn't even have to look anything up to find out if I was a resident. The sticker was right there, calling for them to come and take my pretty car away.

This was a devastating day and I felt awful, but I really did learn an important lesson from it: no matter what, suck it up and park your car under the stupid tree because that is the 'safe zone.' Yep. And read signs. It sucks to have to learn lessons the hard (and expensive) way, but I guess it is just part of growing up, you know? Hopefully I can safely say that I will never be making that mistake again!

What's a foolish mistake you have made? I'm sure I'm not the only one to do something this dumb :)