Our 1971 Chevelle was towed on the 13th of August for being dirty and having expired tags. That I could deal with, wife and I were both busy and forgot to register it.

We go down to the tow yard in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road.

We approach a bent gate with barbed wire and a bell on top of it. The gate was chained shut so I shook it to make the bell ring. An employee of this place comes out and asks which car we’ve come for and to provide registration and a valid ID. We hand over the information and wait in the road. She returns and puts a waiver form through the fence. I declined signing it until I saw the car. She asked for the keys so she could move it out of the impound.

She got in the car and began trying to maneuver it around a Suburban that was perpendicular to the chevelle and blocking its exit line by about a foot. She backed right into the Suburban. After making impact, she put it into drive. I heard the engine roar and the car went forward into a dumpster. The impact moved the dumpster about 3 feet toward their trailer.

The woman driving the car jumped out yelling “this car has no brakes, this car has no brakes” when just 2 minutes earlier she was moving forward and backward to make a 1000 point turn to get the chevelle out.

She called the owner and he showed up about 20 minutes later. Its almost 100 degrees outside in Riverside.

I called the Colton Sheriff while waiting and they would not come out to take a report or be mediators to these hostile people because the damage happened on private property.

The owner finally arrives, gets in the chevelle, backs it out, gets out leaving it running and “surveys” the damage.

Instantly he’s defensive and aggressive with us after we witnessed his employee demolition derby our car into 2 inanimate objects. He points at the bumper and says “that was like that when we towed it”. “A chevelle wouldn’t take this much damage from hitting a dumpster”. The bumper was bent upward into the grill and the hood was damaged. After yelling more he said, “get this car out of here” and I told him I want his insurance information.

After moving the car out of the impound I parked outside of the chained gate and waited for the woman who wrecked our car to return with the insurance information. When she presented the card I thanked her. All the while I didn’t swear at these people.

Just as we were about to leave my wife remembered we had not received any receipt or written documentation from them. So I rattled the gate again and she came out. I told the woman we didn’t receive the paperwork and she came down to the gate and put the same damage sheet through the opening. I asked if she had added the new damage she caused and she said no. I took the clipboard by the base to review the paperwork but she wouldn’t let go of it.

That made me curious so I flipped the pages over to see if there was anything else, and below the yellow copy were two square pieces of “paper” that I immediately recognized as polaroid photographs. I flipped one of them up and discovered it was a rear shot of the chevelle taken before they towed the car. As soon as I touched the picture she tried to pull the clipboard back through the gate. So I pulled it back harder out of her hands and examined the other photo. It was a front shot of the car showing the bumper and grill undamaged prior to them taking custody of the car.

She yelled at me to give it back to her and I told her “you have pictures of our car without damage right here!”. And she turned and ran yelling “he took the clipboard and the photos” over and over again. I told my wife to get back to our other car. Then the owner came out yelling “give me that clipboard and those photos”. He was very aggressive, but he was locked in by his own gate. He yelled it one more time and then yelled “open the gate, open the gate!” followed by “you won’t be able to use those photos with the insurance!” “Give me those f’in photos!” with his arm extended angrily through the opening in the gate.

I moved into the chevelle and told him “I have evidence that the car wasn’t damaged before you towed it” hit the gas and left him in a cloud of dust.

My wife said he was standing on the steps outside of that “classy trailer” waiving his fist at me as the cloud of dust settled around him.

Now we have to deal with the insurance.