WARNING: Check parking lots VERY CLOSELY before you leave your car there.

Last night friends and I went to see the affable piano troubadour Marc Cohn of “Walking in Memphis” fame. We arrived at the Galaxy Theater in Santa Ana, Calif., and found that the venue parking lot was full.

Since the show was starting soon, we left our cars in a nearby office building/industrial complex/malling of America/suburban blight parking lot, making sure to not hunker down in the “reserved” spots.

We get in and there’s a big line for the dinner seating, but we get lucky and sneak up to a private balcony room. Epic. Cohn plays all the hits, rocks out “Dig Down Deep” with particular aplomb, and closes with a plaintive acoustic number as I down my fourth Corona. Good times.

We get out to our cars and … Oh wait! We DON’T get out to our cars! They’ve been towed, along with the cars of about 15 other Cohn-heads!

Seems the frayed sign that warns potential perpetators of towing means business. As the other car-owners mill about, barking into their cell phones, one of them the typically tragicomic “you’ll be hearing from my attorney” barker, we find out that Medlin’s Towing of Westminster has our cars, and if we want them tonight, it’ll cost $245.

To make a long story endless, we get the cars about three hours later and find out that Medlin’s knows the Galaxy show schedule, arrives on show nights, waits for the inevitable to happen, makes a big sweep of all the offending cars and dumps them in a nearby lot.

Then, when the people plunk down their $245, they individually go back to that lot and tow the cars back to Westminster, which is some 15-20 minutes away.

A helluva scam for Medlin’s. A helluva chafe and lesson for me.