Not terribly original, but I used that title to encourage search engine traffic, so sue me.
Picture this: someone steals the spare set of keys to your Jeep Grand Cherokee out of your Dodge Neon. Would you get the Cherokee re-keyed? Most people would. But not me. Ohhhhhhh no. Cuz that's not the way I roll.
Flash forward three weeks: I have been lulled into complacency by the fact that the key thief (who also scavenged $1.32 in random change and my son's nasty-ass school backpack) is apparently a moron who doesn't realize he can come back and take a WHOLE CAR. Then one day, wake up, husband goes out the door to work, comes back in, and says, with less urgency than one might imagine, "Where's your car?"
I walk out the door and check of course, just in case he has somehow overlooked it, and sure enough, just a blank space where my car used to be. Who's the moron now?
Not so fast.
As it turns out, the car is recovered, oh, a week later, by a cop who, while very friendly, calls the neighborhood it was found in "the Ghetto." We live in a Mississippi River town of 30,000 or so in southern Illinois. Detroit it ain't. This made me laugh, on the inside of course.
Anyhoo, the car was in reasonable shape, but filthy, out of gas, and smelling like the inside of a strip club. Not that I would know.
He was generous enough to leave me some homemade rap CDs and a really lovely Crown Royal cap in place of the 500 pennies that were stashed in the cup holders, but the best thing he left behind? Er, his Illinois picture ID. Uh, yeah. NOW who's the moron, sucker!!!
Funny. Funny. Funny.
What's not so funny is that he left most of my crap in the car but for some reason tossed all of my CDs -- RHCP, Nirvana, Foo Fighters. Strangely, this pissed me off more than the actual car theft itself. Perhaps it's time to re-examine my priorities . . .
Picture this: someone steals the spare set of keys to your Jeep Grand Cherokee out of your Dodge Neon. Would you get the Cherokee re-keyed? Most people would. But not me. Ohhhhhhh no. Cuz that's not the way I roll.
Flash forward three weeks: I have been lulled into complacency by the fact that the key thief (who also scavenged $1.32 in random change and my son's nasty-ass school backpack) is apparently a moron who doesn't realize he can come back and take a WHOLE CAR. Then one day, wake up, husband goes out the door to work, comes back in, and says, with less urgency than one might imagine, "Where's your car?"
I walk out the door and check of course, just in case he has somehow overlooked it, and sure enough, just a blank space where my car used to be. Who's the moron now?
Not so fast.
As it turns out, the car is recovered, oh, a week later, by a cop who, while very friendly, calls the neighborhood it was found in "the Ghetto." We live in a Mississippi River town of 30,000 or so in southern Illinois. Detroit it ain't. This made me laugh, on the inside of course.
Anyhoo, the car was in reasonable shape, but filthy, out of gas, and smelling like the inside of a strip club. Not that I would know.
He was generous enough to leave me some homemade rap CDs and a really lovely Crown Royal cap in place of the 500 pennies that were stashed in the cup holders, but the best thing he left behind? Er, his Illinois picture ID. Uh, yeah. NOW who's the moron, sucker!!!
Funny. Funny. Funny.
What's not so funny is that he left most of my crap in the car but for some reason tossed all of my CDs -- RHCP, Nirvana, Foo Fighters. Strangely, this pissed me off more than the actual car theft itself. Perhaps it's time to re-examine my priorities . . .
4 comments:
Just me again.....
What a complete dick! But I suppose if you had brains you wouldn't be stealing cars in the first place. Funny. Can I tell you my story? Ok, thanks.
Manufacturers make their vehicles easy (or easy enough) to steal so they can provide the insured replacement when those vehicles get stolen and trashed. A pet hate. They add DVD players, sunroofs and GPS units but then argue "consumers won't pay the extra costs for additional security" - yeah right. So, to live up to my very public offerings on this subject, I bought a car that was virtually theft-proof. It would be easier to break into my house than into this vehicle, I was told.
So that's exactly what the next car thief did - he (they?) broke into my house at 3am, walked past my sleeping children, past me flaked out on the sofa, touched nothing but just took the carkeys off the kitchen bench, out through the front door and away in my theft-proof vehicle. A common tactic of thieves of modern cars the policeman told me (he didn't really have to grin when he told me that tho did he?). My indignation at car manufacturers had been loud and public amongst the people I knew, so I was chastened to say the least (I think if those I knew weren't so concerned about having invader/s in my children's home at 3am, they would have laughed openly at me).
Never saw my theft-proof vehicle again, probably rebadged by the time I awoke to the draft of my wide open front door. btw, I can't remember exactly what the insurance company said when I supplied them with an inventory of all the CDs that were in the car. I think the woman said it was "rather limited in scope" or something like that.
Sitting here during a particularly dull part of my working day thinking of other corporate/industry scams that we all just blindly accept (yeah, I was chastened but not murdered off). There are the banks who refuse to pass on Federal Reserve interest rate cuts until your next payment is due, even though they get the benefit of it immediately. They made many billions on that one during the 90s when rates were falling every quarter. "We have to make sure the Reserve isn't going to change its mind" a banker friend of mine told me. I actually think he was being serious, he's been drinking too much of the banking industry Kool-Aid obviously.
Any others.....?
btw, feel free to wish me a happy birthday at any time. Today would be best but anytime is OK.
You are correct -- we are sheep, ColinJ. I would likely have more to say, but being more than a little under the weather, am doing my best to muster complete sentences . . . perhaps my wits will return sometime in the night.
Until then, happy birthday to you -- I'm assuming your birthday is, if not today, sometime in the near future or recent past. How old, may I ask? Not that it matters, but that's just the kind of question a birthday announcement begs . . .
Okay, the Nyquil calls . . .
Glad you got your car back!
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