AndyO Blog

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Pandemic 2020: Car stolen!

On an otherwise relaxing Saturday, Brenda went out to the car this afternoon to drive Cameron to Bellevue—only to find there was no car! Our brand new Subaru Crosstrek gone (okay, we bought it last September, but I think that still counts).

I went outside to look at our other car, also a Subaru, which was parked on the street as well. I clicked to unlock, but there was no beep. I found the driver’s door open, the contents of the glovebox spilling out onto the passenger seat, along with my coat.

So that’s where my coat went...

Then I thought about how I hadn’t been able to find my key for the Crosstrek. And I got a bad feeling  that the thieves had gotten the key right out of my coat. Once they broke into the Outback, I’d basically given them the car. I locked the Outback and went back inside. Now I had to admit to Brenda, Cameron, and Drew that the key might have been in my coat.

After several calls to the police and insurance, I went back out to the Outback and tried to unlock it with the key. But the lock didn’t work! The thieves had broken it. I called AAA, and an hour later a guy with no personality showed up and opened up the car.

Now that I had access to the Outback, I popped the hood and started charging the battery. As I was doing that, I remembered that a friend on Facebook had said his sister’s car was stolen recently, and it just happened to be the same car as ours. I asked if she got it back, and he said she found it not far from her house. Also, my next door neighbor Pat said when his car was stolen years ago, he found it a few blocks away. He said, “Sometimes people just don’t want to walk.”

I looked to the end of the block, which is about a quarter mile away, and saw a white Subaru Crosstrek. I asked Brenda to go for a walk to see if we could find the car. I told her about the car down the street, but she seriously doubted that it was our car.

We walked down the street, a cold wind against our faces. As we got closer to that white car, I asked Brenda the license plate number again. It was a match!

We couldn’t believe it.

We looked over the car. The driver’s side door was open a crack. The glovebox was open. And there, sitting on the seat, was my key! I opened the door and grabbed the key. Brenda and I both thought we needed to leave the car where it was, since we’d reported it stolen. When she called the police back, they told us to leave it for three hours. They said if we drove it and officers stopped us, they would draw their guns.

So, if you walk outside one day and your car is missing, take a walk around the block, because it sounds like this is common pattern among car thieves.

I’m just glad to have the car back.


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posted by AndyO @ 6:44 PM   0 comments