A Liberal Education

Cambridge is not a liberal city. You may think it is, with its pro-choice, pro-environment leaders, its stringent recycling laws and its strong support for civil rights and equality among all segments of the population. The "Kremlin on the Charles" is one of the only cities in America with a "peace commission."

But it's not liberal.

No liberal city would tow cars because of street cleaning violations at eight in the morning.

I come from one of the most conservative counties in the nation. In Lancaster, Pa., where a large segment of the population considers electricity an evil vanity, there is certainly no conclave of liberal leaders. Nevertheless, our street cleaners don't come into view until at least after noon. And they have to roam the city after Amish horses and buggies.

Being irrationally terrified of all state officials--especially traffic cops and driver's license examiners--I wanted to avoid the whole towing fiasco. So on Wednesday, I woke up early to move my car because I knew it was street cleaning day. My car was parked behind the Quad (where they don't ticket you every five minutes, just every third day) on the Fourth-Wednesday-of-the-Month side; drawing on my proficiency in math, I had figured out that the fourth Wednesday had come.

I had even been slightly responsible and thought about moving the car early Tuesday before I headed to the Yard to shop classes. But that would have meant putting the car on the Fourth-Tuesday-of-the-Month side, and the car would have been towed for sure.

Of course, I could have moved my car Tuesday night. (And if my mother lived in Cambridge, I would have. And I would have carried my trash down to the basement too; and hung up my posters, which have been sitting on my floor since I got to school. And I might have bought a plant, just to liven up my room.

But I didn't When I got back to the Quad from a hectic day of turning in forms and seminar applications and fulfilling newspaper duties, it was after midnight. People don't walk alone down the dark streets behind the Quad that late at night. And people certainly can't convince other people to accompany them five blocks out of the way during the middle of David Letterman.

So I left my car. But I woke up early on Wednesday to move it. I really did. I got to my parking space at 9:45 a.m.

Isn't that early?

Apparantly, it wasn't early enough. I've only experienced the sensation of realizing that my car had disappeared once before. It was in the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. When I went back with my friends to where I thought I had parked, the car wasn't there--and we hadn't lost enough gambling for casino toughs to have repossessed it. We traipsed through all nine ceramic elephant-laden parking levels before we stumbled upon my humble automobile.

But on Huron St., there are no parking levels. And I still had no car to move. I panicked at my two possibilities: either the car was stolen or it had been towed.

I secretly hoped it had been stolen.

I didn't exactly know what to do in either case. So I did what any logical person at a prestigious liberal arts university would do. I went into the corner grocery store and looked as pathetic as possible while I pleaded for help.

I asked the check-out cashier what to do if I thought my car had been towed.

"Pat's Towing Service," she said.

The lady buying her morning coffee confirmed that with a nod. She turned out to be very helpful--she had been towed several times herself. She told me how to go about retrieving my car and even gave me a lift to the T-stop.

My first task was to find the police station in Central Square. This is not exactly the time in Cambridge to stand in the middle of a crowded intersection and ask, "Where's the nearest police station?" So I had to wander around for a little while before found it.

Recently dispossessed car owners were lined up in front of the "Towing Services" window. The one woman left in front of me by the time I reached the window was visibly distressed. She had been going back and forth from her home and the police station (by foot of course) because she did not know her license plate number and other vital information.

I panicked for a second time; I know my I.D. number and my PAC code, but not my plate number. I suddenly saw the value of personalized license plates. "IM STUPID" would be perfect.

But luckily for me, I'm not that dumb--I had my insurance card with me. The police officer behind the bullet-proof glass window handed me a pink slip and told me that "Pat's Towing Service" was just a straight walk down the street--straight and straight and straight. It was in Somerville. Past Inman Square. (I always wondered where that was.) Past about 12 car repair shops, each of which made me think that I was close to my destination.

I thought "Pat's Towing Service" would be a big parking lot with hundreds of impounded cars stretching all the way to Framingham. But the reality was even scarier. The towing operation is housed in a very gothic-looking brick building that looks like something out of "The Munsters. "The interior of the building is dark and oily. Broken down and smashed automobiles line the entry. And then you meet "Pat."

With this Pat, there is no question of gender as with that "Saturday Night Live" skit. This Pat is certainly a man--a large, hairy man in a tank top sitting behind a desk guarded by an equally large and hairy German shepherd. He takes your money, gives you a municipal ticket and sends you on your way. He doesn't speak. He doesn't even tell you where your car is. You just have to wander through the bowels of the garage looking for it.

Nor does Pat clue you in on how he got into your car to put down your emergency brake, tune the radio to WAAF, the heavy metal station, and catalogue all your belongings (all the way down to the half-empty bag of chips and spilled lemonade under the passenger's seat) for the official record on the back of your receipt.

I was too startled even to ask the man for directions. I just started driving, and through some act of divine grace, I ended up back in the Quad. The parking space that I had been towed from, which is the closest one to civilization within the free parking zone, was still available.

I parked on the other side of the street.

Mark her words, Beth L. Pinsker '93 will be moving her car on October 27 at 7:45 a.m.