Greetings from the Great White North

Apparently Nick Gregory wasn't lying - yesterday was a rainy, miserable day. Stalling until 7 wasn't a good idea - by the time we got in the road, not only was it pouring but it was pitch black out, too. After briefly discussing postponing the trip - not an option - and refueling at the gas station (and Starbucks), we hit the Garden State Parkway and headed north. When your days start at 5 am, 10 pm is late and by the time we crossed into New Hampshire, it was already midnight and we were shot. Lucky Maggie was snoring the back but Sarah and I were fading fast up front - as promised, Sarah dialed Whitney's number the moment we crossed the state line, ready to talk a little trash and let her know we were only 30 minutes away. But Whit's phone went straight to voicemail. Unusual, to say the least - we had spoken about an hour before and she knew we were on course. Why would she turn her phone off?
Perhaps we're all a little prone to excitement. Immediately, our minds turned to the macabre - we were driving through backwoods New Hampshire in the middle of the night, rain pouring down on our family friendly sedan. Better safe then sorry - we bombarded Whit with phone calls and, when that failed, 411'd the number for her family's house. When we got the answering machine, full on panic mode set in. Sarah and I are both long time Girl Scouts and are very familiar with the terrifying tales of mad men crawling through chimneys and hiding in the backseat of cars. Obviously, Whitney had been abducted and it was time to take action. Oh yes, loyal readers, we called the police.
Let's not overreact here - we did select the non-emergency option. Which went to an answering machine. That's right, in Nottingham, New Hampshire, the police station closes. But that didn't stop us - a man was raping and torturing our friend (in our extremely active imaginations, of course) and we had to stop him. So we called the Sheriff Dispatch line. A lovely woman named Melanie answered and Sarah proceeded to explain the situation to her. It actually sounded a little ridiculous as I listened but, nevermind that! Safety first and all of those good things. While Sarah filled Melanie in, her phone chirped. With a text message. From Whitney. Who (unsurprisingly) had very little service in her extremely rural home. Whoops!
This would be an out of the ordinary experience typically, but it turns out, earlier in the day I had tangled with a non-emergency police department in my home state, glorious New Jersey. In keeping with the term "no good deed goes unpunished", I loaned my old car to a friend who needed some temporary transportation a couple weeks ago. The car is crappy and the friend is lovely and I figured what would be would be. What I didn't figure is that my friend would loan the car to a friend of his. Who didn't have a license. And, believe it or not, things like that are frowned upon in our state and the end result is an impounded vehicle and hundreds of dollars in fines. You cannot even imagine how excited I was. Particularly when I had huge issues with paperwork and had to leave the car in impound for a week. Thrilling.
Apparently, people like me rarely have their cars impounded. When I say people like me, I mean mild-mannered suburban girls with steady jobs and no DWIs. The police department refused to give me the location of my vehicle until the paperwork was straightened out - just in case I scored some PCP, scaled a razor wire fence, and busted my car out, I'm assuming. Best to err on the side of caution. But on Thursday, sweet Thursday, I was able to get all of my paperwork in order and the police gave me a release to get my vehicle, which was conveniently located 5 minutes away. Unfortunately, it was also located at a junk yard that closed at 5 pm and it was already 5:03. And, no (I asked), there are no exceptions to the 5 pm rule.
I called the junkyard the next day to schedule a time to meet there - if I left my office exactly on time, my husband and I could be there by 4, which was A-OK with the extremely helpful dispatched. Yet, no one was there when we got there at 4. Shocking. I called the dispatcher who was significantly less helpful this time. If no one was there, it wasn't his problem. I would have to get the car on Monday. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Maybe I ran my mouth a little bit - I can neither confirm nor deny this. I can confirm that I was hung up on several times over the course of the next 45 minutes as we waited in vain for someone to show up.
Maggie's daycare was closing at 5:30. I knew this and I was pushing my luck already. I made my husband leave me while he went to pick up the baby. He was hesitant to say the least. The junkyard was located on a charming dead end, littered with garbage and barky dogs - prime real estate - and there were strange men milling about. But we didn't have a choice - I would be damned if I was spending another dime because of my idiot friend's stupid mistake. Maggie's Daddy pulled away, reluctantly, leaving me standing under an umbrella (did I mention it was raining) in a gravel yard in front of a chain link fence.
So I did what anyone else would do. I called the police. Non-emergency line, again, but this time I asked to speak to the sergeant, to whom I reported my car stolen. He asked me to elaborate and I calmly explained - the tow yard was obviously holding my car hostage, I wanted it out, and I was filing a report. Is anyone surprised that someone showed up 15 minutes later to give me my car? I wasn't. After being escorted into an office that was located on the second floor of a garage (and what I mean by office is room with table and fax machine) I was "permitted" to pay several hundred dollars in exchange for my car keys. The man who came to meet me was as awful as you could imagine. He leered at me, asked for cash before producing any documents, called me a bitch - you can't even imagine. "I don't want to be here, I should be home right now", he informed me. It just about broke my heart, this 600 lb. idiot making me apologize for him doing his job. I didn't kill him. I didn't use the C-word. I didn't burn the garage down. I'm really maturing, I think.
Yesterday was a big day. When we got to Whitney's house, we relaxed a little bit, con champagne, sans inhibitions. And today... well, the non-emergency police line was dialed again. But that's a story for another day.