Being Wrong
January 10, 2014
By Jillian Owens
January 9, 2014
An exercise in totally unjustified self-righteous indignation
The other night, my car was towed away unbeknownst to me, and not for mechanical reasons. My evening went like this: I parked my car in a bar’s parking lot. I met a friend for happy hour. After a couple of hours I walked back to my car and was at first hopeful that it had metamorphasized into the cute silver Audi that was now occupying its former space. Unfortunately, a quick call to the towing company listed on a nearby sign revealed that no…my Monte Carlo was still a Monte Carlo, and that I would need for fork up $135 and drive to the other side of Columbia to the post-apocalyptic wasteland where it had been taken.
When I got to the towing place, the not-very-friendly guy working the front desk told me the manager of Bar X (names have been changed to protect the fascists) had recently taken to sitting and watching the parking lot surveillance monitor to make sure only people who were actually at Bar X or one of the surrounding restaurants that share the lot were parking there. Anyone seen walking in the other direction got towed.
But what if I walked a block the other way to get a jacket I left with my friend before walking right back to Bar X? What about that? I asked, incredibly peeved.
You’ll have to take that up with Bar X
Fine. I will be contesting this. I grabbed my receipt and left.
When I got home, I posted the following Facebook status update:
Wow. Just had my first surprise car tow experience, and yet another reason to never set foot in Bar X. 
I didn’t really expect anyone to respond, but they did. People felt bad for me. Tales were exchanged about how others who had been hanging out at that bar got towed as well. I should write about this injustice here and on my blog. I could make their lives a living hell. Who did they think they were messing with?
Okay…at this point It’s important to note I parked there, but I didn’t enter Bar X or any of the nearby establishments. Bar X is pretty lame, so I went to a far better bar to meet my friend. I had been doing this for years, as no one ever got towed from that lot.
But that didn’t matter now! It was as if that hypothetical girl who walked a block away to retrieve a jacket really was me, and an act of villainy had been committed. Bar X was going down like the Berlin Wall! I would write to corporate! I would talk to that manager and give them a stern what-for! Justice would prevail!
In other words, I was totally in the wrong in every way, but it didn’t matter, because I. felt. right. The supportive comments from friends – who clearly think I’m the type of person who only parks legally (thanks guys!) – continued to pour in, stoking my inner fires of indignation.
But this made no sense. I was in the wrong here. I shouldn’t have parked there. My confidence began to wane as I began typing out an angry letter from a woman with an imaginary jacket who didn’t exist. What was my plan here? I didn’t have a receipt from any of the places that would have allowed me to legally park where I did. No one would remember me from being there as I simply wasn’t, and I wouldn’t be able to describe any of the imaginary staff people who served me there.
I was, in short, being an idiot. I was genuinely worked up over something that was totally my own fault. I stopped writing my angry letter, and instead started writing this.
Why was it easier for me to be an angry moron than to just shrug and admit I was wrong?
I don’t want to be the type of person who elaborately crafts (and even believes in) some bizarre fantasy world where I’m never in the wrong to avoid taking responsibility for my actions.
So instead I wrote this.
Jillian Owens is a writer, designer, and eco-fashion revolutionary. A Columbia SC transplant, she graduated from the University of South Carolina with a BFA in Theatre and English. When she’s not gallivanting about, she’s busy refashioning ugly thrift store duds into fashionable frocks at ReFashionista.net. Jillian has been featured on The Rachael Ray Show, Good Afternoon America, ABC Columbia, Jasper Magazine, Skirt, Columbia Metropolitan, The Free Times, Grist, and NYC’s Guest of a Guest. She also reviews local theater productions for Jasper Magazine and Onstage Columbia.
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