my stand-off

2:33AM on a Saturday night in North Scottsdale at my best friend's house. I come back from swimming with the kids to find a boot on my vehicle. Yes, a boot on my vehicle in a private neighborhood. A boot on my vehicle placed, not by the City of Scottsdale but by the private security company. Something new to me since I had been parking there for 12 years. I wasn't forewarned already. And they're supposed to boot after 2AM but why would you boot a vehicle between 2AM and 2:30??? You boot overnight parking at like 3 or 4 not after 15 minutes.

I don't want to go into the whole thing but basically we called up the guy and had a 2 and half hour standoff with this idiot guy. I still to this moment dont know what his motivation was. I don't know if we was pissed at the world and this was his payback or if he thought he was following the rules.

He couldn't get a hold of his manager, he tried to extort me under the table. We went through the whole cycle anger, negotiating, pleading, anger, etc... If you've ever read the Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway, you know what the struggle is like. I wasn't sure if I could win but I knew I had principle on my side so I stuck it out! Guess what! I got out of paying anything for it and in the end I had to respect the guy no matter what because he pushed me to my limits.