A mighty shout out to the organization formerly known as "Tech Tow"

Dear Valley Towing,

Sirs:

I simply must take this opportunity to commend the rapid and efficient work of your staff. When my foray to the Food Lion on North Main St. at 11:30 pm Saturday night took a turn for the unexpected, little did I realize that my starter’s inefficacy would catalyze a rapid reaction team of which the Ministry of Homeland Security would be justly proud. In despite of your fine organization, I thought to forestall any complaint by placing flyers under each windshield wiper indicating that my car would not start. I further opined in writing that I would return at first light to rectify the problem, isasmuch as the 20 degree windchill and more or less complete lack of light presented what seemed to me to be insurmountable obstacles, given the placement of my Oldsmobile’s starter.

It was only after I returned at 6:23 am, hectored an innocent and bewildered cashier [to be told that a manager would appear at 7:00 am], and re-initiated my brisk and bracing morning walk that my confusion began to be replaced by something very like awe. “Surely,” I thought, as I broke in to my temporary place of abode in order to turn the alarm off, “this kind of efficiency could only be martialed in response to a very real, very potent threat.” Impressed, sirs, beyond my ability to cogently express, I immediately set off back up the hill towards the spot that my car had so recently (7.5 hours?) occupied. After making my way once more through the dead empty parking lot (certainly unsullied by a certain aged and ailing Oldsmobile), a quick fact-finding consultation with the aforementioned (but now present) manager--cool helpful guy! Seriously. Hello Mr. “D”!--gave me a better grip on the overall situation.

I had not reckoned, in my ill-advised failure to put my two-ton car in a backpack and traipse off the hallowed ground guarded with tenacious zeal by the fine, fine members of your organization, with your employees’ ability to recognize a threat, if not recognize block printing. I blame myself. As a fan of MacGyver (What’s he doing with that thing?) and as a proud owner of quite possibly the largest Swiss Army Knife extant, I too should have realized that my briefcase in the backseat (under my laundry ... *all* of my laundry) could be combined with my recently re-graded student papers and, say, my house and bike lock keys in the front seat in order to form a small tactical nuclear weapon. Full of bird flu, possibly, although it was clean laundry; a relative term I realize. And “Turr-er-ism.” Maybe isolationism, too, I’m not sure. But that’s why YOU’RE the professionals!

The full beauty and majesty of your Top Gun-like scramble to mobilize only became clear to me once I had the honor and pleasure of conversing with some of your vaunted members. The tower, who I spoke to Sunday morning, dispensed with any debate about the fairness or wisdom of your crack team’s actions by responding to my assertion that I had left not one, but TWO notes on the car with the simple and incisive expedient of saying “Nuh-uh!” As I metaphorically fell prostrate before his searing logic, I reflected on the deep commitment to rhetorical skill and relevance which permeates public and private discourse here in the United States of America. Literally, a tear came to my eye. And not just to demonstrate longing for the allergy medicine which was, perhaps by now predictably, in my car, that would not start, several miles away. With the keys to my bike lock. And my housekeys. Which brings me to the alleged point of this particular paragraph: since I could not drive my car off the lot (for the low, low price of $95.00), I would be priveleged to see your team in action!

Let me say now, sirs, that it was worth every single penny of the $180.00 (which I paid with $20 bills) to watch your resolute operative maneuver my vehicle into a spot ... Such grace! Such power! So much easier than, say, pushing it into a spot in which it would be “safe.” Which is what I did, several nights ago. I can only take comfort in the realization that some aspects of my rugby training sessions, should I soon have enough money to actually fix my car and go, will be redundant. Had I had to push the car uphill from its original spot to its new one almost 20 meters away, I could have taken even more comfort of that kind. But that is beside the point. I literally cannot express my thanks in words. So let me join Dante Alighieri in wishing you and your entire organization my very deepest, and very, very warmest regards.

I can only hope that you look forward as expectantly as I to our ensuing--and I choose that word *very* carefully, as I am wont to do--more personal, more pecuniary, and above all more litigious correspondence.

Sincerely,
M. T. Rea, Esq. (J.D.)
Marshall-Wythe School of Law, Class of 1993
Department of Philosophy, Virginia Tech