Come To Think Of It, Maybe It Was O.J.

Eleven years ago, I had my car stolen. It was a Honda Accord, and I LOVED that car. It was parked right in front of our apartment we were renting, and when I came out at one o’clock in the afternoon with a friend, there was an empty space where I had left it a few hours earlier. The thing that made me saddest, though, was losing a small rubber dinosaur that was glued to my dashboard – we had bought it on our honeymoon and it had been with us for the entire three week trip, stealthily watching over us from it’s perch.

Then there was the time, five years ago, when I almost got my car stolen.

I had gone to the Beverly Center to do some Christmas shopping, and pulled on to the fourth floor, which is where I ALWAYS park. I say this with great certainty, because I have a horrible sense of direction and therefore only park where I know I’ll be able to find my car when I return, intoxicated by the rush of all the buying of expensive creams and overpriced pants. So, imagine my sense of deja vu when, after several trips up and down the aisle, lugging my great load of valuable purchases, I couldn’t find my car. A hysterical cell phone call to Rigel followed.

“I’m at the Beverly Center! My car’s been stolen!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’M SURE – I’ve been up and down the aisle five times. It’s gone. You need to come down and get me.”

“Well, okay, but maybe you should alert security first. And maybe take another look around.”

“I told you, IT’S GONE. I WILL NOT TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AROUND FOR A CAR THAT IS NOT HERE! Come and get me. NOW.”

I flagged down a security guard, and after giving him a description of my car, “Champagne Camry” (I always called it Champagne instead of gold. Gold just sounded so gaudy) he told me to hop in his little hotrod cart and we would take a look around. I kept trying to tell him it had been stolen, and weren’t we wasting valuable time, wasn’t he concerned that my car was probably already being disassembled and the parts being picked over by members of a car-thieving street gang? Apparently not, since he just kept driving that damn little cart up and down the aisles, slowly. He was just not getting it – my car was gone and nobody cared.

Then he suggested we drive on up the fifth floor and take a look around, but I told him that I never, EVER had even parked on the fifth floor. It was just impossible, it wasn’t in my territory, it would have been like a monkey just deciding to up and wander off into a whole different jungle. He didn’t get the analogy, but oh well, my car’s been up and stolen is what I was tryin to say! But he convinced me to ride on up with him to the fifth floor, “Just to be absoloootly cer-tayn” is how he put it, I think, so off we went even though I knew it was hopeless and my car was probably already gone, the sad shell of it sitting forlornly in an alley somewhere, and hey, maybe I’ll get one of them snazzy ESS YOU VEES that everyone is talkin’ about. Anyway, while I was checking out the cars on the fifth floor, thinking of which model I might soon be purchasing, I heard him say, “You mean a champagne colored Camry, jest like that one there?” and I looked up to see a car EXACTLY LIKE MINE. Oh, and it had MY LICENSE PLATE ON IT. And after he asked me what I RECKON had happened, I said, with all seriousness, “Well, it’s obvious that someone broke in and drove my car up here.” After he gave me the hard boot out of his little cart, (and really, sir, was all that cussing necessary?) I had the painful task of driving my previously stolen car over to the guard station where Rigel was waiting, now staring suspiciously at my newly recovered, previously stolen car, his enraged eyeballs boring through my windshield.

And I’ll be damned if I STILL don’t know why those practical jokers didn’t just STEAL the thing instead of driving it up to the fifth floor.

Archive File: Married | This Life

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