The first trick in getting to the Boston Transportation Department tow lot is finding a cab driver who knows where it is. The lot is smack in the middle of the Big Dig, so directions for getting there change constantly. I asked five cabs in a row if they knew where it was before I got a winner, a genial Haitian who said, "Oh sure, hop in." He zipped through back streets and deposited me at the lot within ten minutes.

Why are there so many cab drivers in Boston who don't know their way around? I took a cab a few years ago to the Gardner Museum in the Fenway. I was very clear with the driver that we were going to the Gardner, not the Museum of Fine Arts. I leaned forward as he drove out Huntington Avenue and reminded him that we were not going to the MFA. And you can guess where he turned in. I wanted to burn his taxi license and sentence him to four weeks on a Boston tour trolley.

It's bad enough that drivers don't know major tourist attractions, but the tow lot? Boston is notorious for ticketing and towing. I would think that people take cabs to the tow lot on a fairly frequent basis. (You can't get there on foot because of the construction. Even via public transportation, you have to take a cab from the nearest T station.)

The ransom for my car was $250. The car had been there a little, uh, longer than I had realized. All the same, I was pleased to see it and drive it again. I took a circuitous route home through Chinatown, then South End, just cruising for the pleasure of cruising. The city was oddly empty today, and I found a legal parking space almost immediately. What are the odds?

In the morning I'll throw my toothbrush and shampoo into my bag and head to Maine, with one stop on the way at Urban Outfitters (read: almost positively no legal parking) to replace my favorite cheap sunglasses. Both of the earpieces snapped off while I was jumping up and down at the Push Stars show, and my cool Tyler Durden shades (two sets, yellow lenses and blue lenses) just aren't dark enough for everyday life. Besides, the black ones are good hair shades: they look good shoved up into my hair. That's a deeply important quality for sunglasses. Important enough to risk yet another ticket while running into the store.

I'll be back on Thursday sometime, I think, sunburned and mellow.