about which we ended up listening to country music in a yellow cab.

last night, we graced johnson county with our presence to indulge in a little phenomenon known as spin pizza. after a carafe of wine, two pizzas and two hours of conversation, i wasn't ready to go home. i insisted that the songs playing through the i-pod on the drive back downtown were ones i knew so that i could sing along at the top of my lungs. i'd been feeling sick for too long and was ready to feel better. so instead of going home, we stopped at martini corner and had a drink at the drop. after spending less than an hour there, we left and walked to the car. and well, the car wasn't there. but there wasn't any broken glass on the lot. there was no trace of foul play. just an empty spot that once held trusty leonardo. after taking a few laps around the lot to verify that the car didn't just "move" to another space, we walked into the liquor store that the car was parked in front of to ask if they'd seen anything. the guy working behind the counter just said, with a cocky tone, "yep, i had it towed. here's a card, call this number and arrange to have it picked up." we did that. it was going to cost $290 to get it back. wtf. seriously.

being that it was almost midnight, we called a cab to take us home and figured the car would be fine until the morning. the yellow cab arrived at the wrong bar and loaded itself with very drunk college students. but we shamelessly kicked them out of our cab and headed home. the foreign cab driver was listening to hip hop when we got in the back. but he switched it to twangy country once we took off. we must look like the country type.

fast forward to today. we call the number and set up an appointment to pick up leonardo at 11 a.m. we're instructed to drive 15 miles to the east bottom bottoms, cross the train tracks and then wait in the car across the street from a building. that's where a red chevy truck was supposed to meet us, collect our $290 in cash and then take us to the car. shady? yes.

while we waited for the red truck that was 15 minutes late, we called the city tow company. they said that it costs $140 to release a car. if the red flags in our minds weren't already up, they were certainly now. the truck arrived carrying three passengers. two big, red-neck looking guys and a woman wearing a hoodie, jeans and the blingiest, iced-out sunglasses i'd ever seen. they tell us to follow them.

so we do. down the street. left at some dilapidated old bar. across two sets of train tracks and into a huge parking lot gated with an electric fence and barbed wire. we see the city tow lot to our right but they keep going. so we follow. around a corner. past a bunch of stalled semi-trucks, behind a building and to leonardo. we're not ready to hand over the cash though, so we tell them we're on the phone with a city official who claims it shouldn't cost this much to release the car. the most red-neck of the red-neck guys says to us, "they need to re-check their records then. you need to know what you're talking about before you come here." um, excuse me? WE need to know what we're talking about?

then the iced-out woman with really long, purple fingernails says, "this is a privately owned company that is mine. do you want your vehicle or not?"

at that point i think we were both afraid of getting physically damaged. or killed. so we handed over the $290 cash and left.

but i'll tell you something. i will never shop at that liquor store again. and i am going to start investigating the deal that liquor store has with this "privately owned" towing company.

because something just doesn't seem right.