Service with a Grimace

Tow Guy, Sebastopol, 2011.

I love this way of advertising a tow/service station. 

However, I'm unsure why this tow truck driver is brandishing a guilty grimace for having towed someone. Most tow truck drivers I've encountered are brutish, reckless drivers who somehow feel like they are doing a civic duty by towing an unauthorized car. 

It's almost as ridiculous as Homer's grossly mistaken, self-fabricated sense of entitlement in this scene (sorry, I could only find it in Russian; he's yelling, "It's all right! I'm a teacher!" as he stops traffic at a red light).

My friend Ben is from Sebastopol. When I asked him if he was familiar with this sign (see it below as part of the street's scene), it led to an awesome discussion. Ben told me about an artist who lives in town and has created a piece of scrap metal sculpture for each house that shares his street. 

Patrick Amiot and Brigitte Laurent create objects out of scrap metal and paint them as a team. Ben told me this story about one of their pieces for which I couldn't find an article, so I'll tell it here. The sculpture, a giant scrap metal cow, is situated outside of town in a cow pasture along Highway 12. Local authorities and citizens became perturbed at the annoying habit that someone had developed of repeatedly tipping this cow at night. I'm not sure how frequently or often it happened, but it became warranted to hold a night vigil to catch the perpetrators. 

The watching crowd of pitchfork- and shotgun- wielding observers* waited. And waited. Maybe this wasn't the night. Nobody was near the sculpture except for a few head of cattle. Then, as the posse  watched, the cows, rubbing against the idol, toppled the giant cow: the mystery was solved.

I guess the lesson here is that things aren't always what they appear.

*These details are my own imaginings.