The Wrong Monkey and the Wrong Van: Another Amazing True-Life Story

The police car had been idling outside for a while, so I stepped outside and asked the police officer what was going on. She pointed to the van parked across the street from my place and said that it was going to be towed.

I became upset immediately, pointing to a neighbor's home, saying that this was his van. 

She said there had been a complaint, that the van had been parked there for too long, that it was therefore going to be towed, and basically, that that was that, although she phrased it more politely. Throughout the entire episode she remained perfectly pleasant and polite.

I begged and pleaded, told the police officer what a great guy my neighbor was, insisted that this was wrong, I was relentless. She didn't budge an inch. 

I asked whether there was a least a way that I could complain about the complaint. She gave me a phone number, I was connected with a lieutenant, and the next little while was very much as it had been with the first officer, with me begging and pleading and the lieutenant not budging.

A little while after the police car departed, before any tow truck arrived, I saw my neighbor, and I excitedly told him he had to moved his van or it was going to be towed. 

"That's not my van," he told me calmly. 

I told him I was sure I had seen him and his mother moving that van and moving stuff in and out of it. 

He said that his mother had a vehicle similar in size, shape and color to the van. He also mentioned that it had been him who had made the complaint about this van. 

I reflected, and thought that, if I subtracted the times I had seen my neighbor and his Mom and the other vehicle, then this van had been here for a long time, and I hadn't seen it move, and it did seem as if it had been abandoned. 

I called the police number again. The dispatcher immediately remembered me. I told her that I saw now that I had been mistaken, and wished to apologize to everyone.

I could clearly picture the police officer who had arrived earlier in her car, and the lieutenant, and perhaps still other people, knowing that I was complaining about a van belonging to a certain person, and knowing that the person I named as the owner, and his address which I was pointing to, was the same person with the same address who had called asking for the van to be towed.