I woke up at 4 am, X-Files-style, eyelids rolling back as if under the control of an alien force. I had no reason to be up that early. I don’t go running ‘til after 5 at the earliest so I resented being wide awake for no reason. I managed to doze and daydream another forty minutes or so before getting up.
My knees have been killing me, my right knee, especially. Arthritis, I believe. I’ve been holding arthritis at bay for ten years with glucosamine chondroitin supplements but the last couple of months I’ve been hurting. My knee has been stiff and sore and I’ve hardly gone running at all.
I finished stretching and went to stand up when my right knee exploded with pain. I lunged for the bed and pulled myself onto it with my hands and minimal effort from my left leg. What the hell had I just done to my leg? ACL, MCL? Sports injuries I had heard about as a fan ran through my mind.
I was surprised then when the intense pain subsided and I was able to stand. My right knee actually felt better than it had in awhile. Not perfect, but better.
I walked outside at 5 am. It was still dark, cool and a little foggy. My eyes automatically drifted to the right side of the parking lot where my car is parked. One problem: No car. I Iooked again—no, it definitely was not there. My mind struggled to comprehend this. How can this be? Someone stole my — car? Someone — stole — my car! Someone stole my car!!
What the fuck? Now what? Call the cops? I had just gotten ready to ready to go running. How fast were the cops gonna get here anyway? My car would still be stolen when I got back. I only run for fifteen minutes, anyway.
So off I went.
I felt no pain in my knees. I was too preoccupied with my car. It was too crazy. Who would steal a 1997 Honda Accord? (A lot of people, as it turns out. 90’s Hondas are the most stolen car in America.)
I came back, showered, made coffee, called the police.
Ten minutes later, a black-and-white SUV pulled up in front of my house. I ran outside.
“Where’d ya pahk ya cahr?” the cop asked. I was thrown by this. Was he from New England? I live in a small suburban college town about 45 minutes north of San Francisco. It didn’t really sound like a Boston accent. What kinda cop did they send me at 6 in the morning? Did he have a speech impediment? Was he mentally handicapped?
No, he was Australian. And pretty cool at that. He entered my info into a laptop mounted on the dash to his right. He was reasonable and not at all paranoid. In my experience up here, the cops are constantly squirrelly that I might transform into the Terminator at any moment, even though I am not the least bit physically imposing and lack the obvious shady vibe that criminals and people prone to violence give off. (I worked in a liquor store for six years and so I’ve had ample opportunity to interact with cop and criminal alike.)
The cop told me, “Now if you find your car, don’t get in and start driving. I’ve entered your plates into the system and so you would be stopped and taken out of your car at gunpoint.”
“That would be bad,” I said.
“That would be bad,” he agreed, almost smiling. “Just stand next to your car with identification and call it in.”
He told me that every police department in California would be looking for my car.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “ Who would want my ’97 Honda? What could it possibly be worth?”
“Oh, they just take it for a ride. They’re easy to steal,” the cop told me. “Have you looked to see if your car’s nearby? Driven around the neighborhood?”
I gave him a look. “Driven?—No.”
He flinched. “I have to ask these questions. Any suspects come to mind?”
“Suspects?— No.”
So he gave his card with his phone number and the case number and drove off.
I spent the next couple of days telling people that my car had been stolen. I was told repeatedly how easy ‘90s Hondas were to steal. I speculated with friends how it probably been used in a drive-by or stripped for parts; a body dumped in the trunk and the car pushed into a pond; most dramatically, a dead hooker stuffed in the drunk, the killer coolly flicking a Zippo lighter behind him as he walked away and my car exploding in huge fireball and small mushroom cloud.
I spent the next two days—walking. Which sucked. I’ve only had a car for ten years so I’ve spent most of my life walking to get somewhere. Or catching buses. Or getting rides from friends and family. All of which sucks.
I was walking home the second day when the claims adjuster from my insurance company called to tell me I was entitled to nothing, having only minimal coverage. She was nice about it, apologetic even–but it was still insult to injury even though it was no surprise at all.
I just couldn’t believe my car was gone. I kept looking out the window, expecting it to magically reappear, intact, unscathed.
My car—gone. Plus my CDs: Otis Redding, Otis Rush, the Allman Brothers, Duane Allman, Little Feat, R.E.M., Bob Marley, Joy Division. Well, they were welcome to R.E.M. but not Otis Redding, those thieving bastards!
I went out for pizza with my brother that night. Near the end of dinner, a buddy called to ask if I had found my car. “No”, I said, finally resigned to the horrible truth. “They’ll never find it. Not up here. I’m sure it’s been stripped for parts.” My friend offered condolences as we hung up.
My brother and I got into his car. He started it up when my phone rang with an unfamiliar number. “Let me see who this is,” I muttered.
It was a police officer from the next town over. Giggling. Have you ever talked to a cop who giggled? Me neither. It was weird.
What the cop told me was this: someone from a garage was dropped off at my apartment complex with keys to a ‘90s Honda. He walked up to my car. His key opened the door and started the ignition so he drove my car off to the garage in the next town. The mechanics couldn’t find a problem so they called the customer. That’s when they discovered they had the wrong car.
I got the address of the garage from the cop and my brother drove me up there in about ten minutes. As the diminutive Hispanic garage mechanics hung back, smiling sheepishly, the still-giggling cop, a big white dude in sunglasses with gun, Taser, the works on his belt, showed me my car was fine and that all my stuff still inside—CDs, sunglasses, and my case of Costco paper towels still in the trunk. The cop made me wait another five minutes as he chuckled his way through a conversation with his superiors.
“Sorry it took so long”, he said after he hung up. “It’s just such an unusual outcome for a case like this. This never happens.”
My relief at getting my car back was tempered by a strong desire to get the fuck out of there.
I shook his hand, started my car up, and plunged into rush hour traffic, the gentle cool sound of Otis Redding mingling with the familiar stream of obscenities I uttered as drivers braked suddenly or cut me off and all other routine idiocies of the road.
I had my car back! Joy!
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