Last weekend, PJ's car was serviced by the good folks at Greulich's in Ahwatukee. Seems the cooling fan, which had been acting up (so that's what that noise was) finally gave out and needed to be replaced. Problem is, the replacement was defective, so the car broke down again and had to be towed.

Keep in mind the nighttime temperatures here are in the 90s this time of year. During the day, we're getting over 110 easily.

We called for a tow truck after nursing the car into the airport rental car visitor's parking area and renting a car for a day to be able to get back and forth to work and pick up the car once it was ready, and the truck arrived without too much fuss. It was a flatbed which needs a bit of room to draw the car up onto the bed.

This is a small parking lot. Used by some apparently inexperienced, impatient drivers.

The tow truck driver left plenty of room (a good 6-8 feet) between the front of his truck and the car that parked across from me well after I'd called the truck, but people couldn't figure out how to maneuver their cars through that more than adequate space, so the driver had to stop helping me with the whole towing thing to direct traffic around his truck which, had these drivers not been idiots, he would have moved out of their way very quickly.

After he got the car onto the tow truck bed, there was yet more room behind his truck where the car had been for people to get around. This time, there was a good 10 feet worth of clearance, yet people still couldn't figure out how to get around the truck to use the only exit available, so the driver once again was relegated to traffic duty rather than the towing duty he's paid for and for which we'd called him.

What got me was:

1) The impatience of the drivers who seemed to think the tow truck was there solely to inconvenience them, not to tow the broken down car.

2) The poor driving skills demonstrated by said drivers.

3)The rudeness of the drivers who shot us incredibly dirty looks for having the audacity to be towing a broken down car in their parking lot in their way on their time while breathing their air.

How dare we?

To all the half dozen or so people at Sky Harbor Airport's off property rental car visitor's parking who I inconvenienced by having a broken down car towed out while you were trying to get out of the parking lot's only exit, I have two words for you.

And they ain't "I'm sorry."