You thought the sculptures on Veterans Blvd. were an eyesore....

An update (such as it were) on the story of the car that crashed through the Whitney parking garage and landed upside-down on the roof of an adjacent law firm.

First of all, reporters have attached names to the couple who took the plunge over the parking garage: Mohamed Amine Arfaoui and his wife Ekaterina Voloshina. Arfaoui was previously employed as a valet (!) at the garage. Voloshina is simply listed as an "exchange student". Arfaoui contends that he crashed through the concrete barrier accidentally, when he stepped on the accelerator and was unable to hit the brake in time to prevent the fall.

Now let's get to the millionaire-dollar question: What in the hell were they doing on top that parking garage in the first place? Well, first, think about what you might be doing up there at that time of the night. Do you have an answer in your head? Well, this couple was up there doing the exact opposite of anything you came up with. They were up there, as they had been for several nights, to gain the use of free wireless Internet service for their laptop computer, courtesy of the LaQuinta Inn. It wasn't stated in the article, but I suspect this wasn't part of a prior arrangement they had with the hotel. I also suspect that technically constitutes stealing, but that issue didn't come up in the article, either. If it matters, they used the wireless Internet service they weren't paying for to send messages to their family in Russia. I guess they didn't pay their monthly bill on the shoephone, either.

Keep in mind that the couple's original story was that they didn't know what happened, which sounds more believable than this business about pilfering free Internet (okay, so that story's believable, too, but it's so much dumber than simply being clueless). Overall, I'd sooner believe the driver accidentally kicked the car into gear while engaged in a lewd sex act, but I guess I can understand one's embarassment in relating such a story. After all, very few men want complete strangers to know that the woman they're hosing is the same woman with whom they're married; reputations get ruined by such information these days. Either way, be it free internet or lewd sex, you're right behind the damn hotel -- GET A ROOM!!

One last detail: Stephen Barry, a lawyer at the neighboring law firm said the "insurance companies involved were trying to decide which one will pay the nearly $30,000 it would cost for a crane to pluck" the car off of their roof. For crying out loud, charge it to Arfaoui's insurance company, assuming he has insurance. Otherwise, this might be a good chance to finally stick it to the Russians!