Where Am I Supposed to Park This Thing? On the Cyclone?!

One of the funny things about being a tow truck driver is that the job can take you just about anywhere. You can start your day sitting around in New Jersey wondering whether the phone is ever going to ring, and a couple of hours later you’re crossing bridges, fighting New York traffic, and wondering what series of decisions in your life led you to this exact moment.

That happened to me recently when I picked up a vehicle in the Denville area that needed to go all the way to a body shop near Coney Island. Anybody who drives for a living already knows how a trip like that goes. You look at the mileage on the GPS and think, “All right, that’s not terrible.”

The GPS, of course, is a lying bastard.

Mileage means absolutely nothing when you’re heading toward New York. You’ve got traffic, construction, lane closures, people changing lanes without looking, people who suddenly discover their exit while they’re four lanes away from it, and enough random stupidity to make a normal person question whether humanity was actually a successful experiment.

And I’m not driving a little car that I can whip around wherever I want. I’m in a flatbed tow truck with somebody else’s vehicle sitting on the back. Every lane change requires a little more planning. Every idiot who cuts in front of you becomes a bigger problem because you’re moving considerably more weight than they are, and stopping isn’t exactly instantaneous.

So I made my way through the usual New York chaos and eventually got to the body shop. By that point, I had been sitting in the truck long enough that simply climbing out of the cab and standing upright felt like I had booked a weekend at a resort.

I unloaded the vehicle, finished everything I needed to do, and realized where I was.

Coney Island was right there. Not twenty miles away. Not something I could vaguely see on a highway sign. I was only a few blocks away.

And immediately, I started thinking about food because, apparently, this is how my brain works.

I thought, “You know what? I’m already here. Maybe I’ll stop and get a hot dog.”

That was the entire plan. Nothing complicated. I wasn’t planning a full day at the beach. I wasn’t looking to ride the Wonder Wheel. I wasn’t going to spend six hours playing carnival games trying to win a stuffed animal worth $7 after spending $85 to get it. I wanted a hot dog.

Maybe walk around for a few minutes, stretch my legs after that miserable drive, grab something to eat, look at Coney Island for a minute, and then head back to New Jersey. Seemed reasonable.

Then reality stepped in.

Wait a second. I’m driving a fucking tow truck.

Where exactly am I supposed to park this thing, on the fucking Cyclone?

That was the moment the entire plan fell apart.

People driving regular cars don’t really have to think about this stuff. You pull into an area, look for parking, and either you find a spot or you don’t. Worst case, maybe you drive around the block a couple of times or pay twenty bucks for a garage.

That doesn’t exactly work when your vehicle is basically a small commercial building with wheels. I can’t pull into some underground parking garage and hope for the best. Clearance signs suddenly become extremely important when ignoring one could result in peeling equipment off the roof of the truck.

I can’t squeeze into a parallel-parking spot between two cars. I can’t just nose the thing into some little municipal lot designed for Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas and leave half the truck hanging into the street.

And this is New York. I’m pretty sure “I only wanted a hot dog” isn't recognized as a legal commercial parking exemption.

Even finding somewhere to turn around becomes part of the equation. Is this street wide enough? Are cars parked on both sides? Is somebody going to double-park halfway down the block and turn the entire street into an obstacle course? Is there a low bridge somewhere? Can I legally take the truck down that street?

Then, if I actually find a place big enough to park, am I allowed to park there? If I throw the hazards on and walk away for fifteen minutes, am I going to come back to a ticket, a traffic jam, or twelve angry New Yorkers standing around the truck wondering which asshole left it there?

Probably all three.

So I started looking around while driving toward Coney Island, hoping maybe I’d get lucky and find some magical stretch of open pavement large enough for the truck. Nothing. Everywhere I looked, the answer was basically, “Not a chance.”

And that’s when the absurdity of the whole situation hit me. I had just driven from the Denville area of New Jersey all the way to Brooklyn. I had fought my way through New York traffic in a flatbed. I had successfully delivered somebody else’s vehicle exactly where it needed to go.

I was now close enough to Coney Island that getting a hot dog should have been the easiest part of the entire trip.

And I couldn’t do it because I had nowhere to put the fucking truck.

That’s one of those parts of towing nobody really thinks about. As a tow truck driver, you get sent everywhere. You see places you might never have had a reason to visit otherwise. You end up in neighborhoods you’ve never seen, cities you rarely visit, industrial areas, beaches, mountains, back roads, airports, dealerships, repair shops, police impound lots, and sometimes places that make you think, “Hey, while I’m here, I should check that out.”

Except you usually can’t because you're working, and because you're driving a tow truck. There have been plenty of times when I’ve passed a restaurant that looked incredible, seen something interesting along the road, or ended up near someplace I wouldn't mind visiting. But there's always that same question: Where the hell am I going to put this thing? It’s almost like getting a free sightseeing tour where you’re not allowed to get off the bus. You can look. You can drive past. You can say, “Hey, that looks cool.”

Then you keep moving.

So there I was, only a few blocks from Coney Island, close enough to practically smell the food, and still unable to enjoy any of it. No hot dog. No boardwalk. No Wonder Wheel. And definitely no Cyclone.

I had delivered the vehicle, completed the job, and earned myself the incredible privilege of climbing right back into the tow truck and fighting my way back out of New York.

That’s the glamorous life of a tow truck driver. You get paid to travel to all kinds of interesting places. You just don’t necessarily get to stop at any of them.

And if anybody knows of a parking spot near Coney Island big enough for a flatbed tow truck, let me know. Because apparently I still have a hot dog waiting for me.