So today I woke up, started my day like usual, left my house around 10:45 for an appointment, and came home around 1:30.
And my car was gone.
Not the car I had been driving. My other car. The one that was supposed to be sitting right there in my driveway.
I did the full double take. Like, whoa. Let me check that again.
True facts: there is not a car in the driveway where a car should absolutely be.
Then my brain starts going through the possibilities. Did I tell somebody they could borrow it? No. Did somebody ask me to use it? No. I called a few people just to make sure I hadn’t somehow forgotten an entire conversation involving the lending of a vehicle.
Nope.
Okay. My car has been stolen.
I Guess We Have to Call the Police
I called my friend Brett and said, “Brett, I think my car is stolen.” I wasn’t exactly sure what I was supposed to do next, and honestly I really did not want to get the police involved.
Brett was basically like: Brooks, you have to call the police.
Oh dear.
So I called the non-emergency number. The man on the phone kept telling me the car wasn’t showing up properly in the system, which was an interesting thing to hear while also staring at the empty space where said car had previously existed.
Eventually an officer came to my house, and thank God it was this really nice older policeman I’ve seen around our neighborhood before. We sat there and talked. I told him what happened, he took down the information, and he explained that people sometimes go around checking cars—especially unlocked cars and push-button vehicles—to see whether someone has left a key inside.
But even he thought the timing was strange.
This happened in broad daylight.
I left around 10:45. I was home around 1:30. One neighbor works from home. Another neighbor is almost always home and has his dog outside. And somewhere in that little window of time, my car apparently just disappeared.
The Universal Car Replacement System
Then, because my brain is my brain, I started thinking about the whole thing differently.
This is a car I haven’t really been using. Brett had been using it for a while, and I took it back because I thought maybe I would sell it. But the truth is, it was mostly just sitting there.
So naturally my mind went to:
Maybe somebody really needed a car.
Maybe the universe has some sort of Universal Car Replacement System. Like the Cat Distribution System, except considerably more illegal.
“Oh, you’re not using this?”
ZOOM.
To be extremely clear: stealing cars is not how I recommend participating in the sharing economy. I would very much like my car returned. And if I do get it back, Brett can use it again.
But there is something so absurd about life sometimes that all I can do is stand there and laugh at the weirdness of it.
The Wrath of Jordan
And then Brett’s friend Josh supplied the exact comedic timing this situation needed.
“Maybe it was Jordan.”
I lost it.
The Wrath of Jordan.
Obviously, that was a joke—not an accusation—but in the middle of being annoyed about having to make phone calls and file a police report, it was exactly the ridiculous laugh I needed.
Car: MIA
As of now, I haven’t heard anything back. No update. No discovery. No grand reunion.
The car is officially MIA.
And then I started thinking about the bumper stickers. Whoever took it would have to get those things off pretty quickly because this isn’t exactly an anonymous little getaway vehicle. It has personality.
So I suppose today’s lesson is much less cosmic than most of mine:
Lock your car.
And definitely don’t leave your keys inside it.
In the meantime, if the Universal Car Replacement System would kindly reverse the transaction, that would be wonderful.
