Stolen Car Stories

I live in Chicago where 40 cars a day are stolen.

Last week my adorable red Toyota was one of them. Stolen from the back yard parking space between 6:00 and 8:30 P.M. I know the time because when I went downstairs the next morning, my neighbor was parked in my spot.

I squinted again and again trying to turn his big dark blue Scion into my tiny red Toyota, but no luck. I walked around the block just in case I had lost my mind and misplaced my car. Nope. My neighbor’s wife walked around the block in case I had lost my mind. Nope.

Regretfully, I phoned the police. The policemen took my report and told me a dreadful story about the gang rape of a young girl in California and added: “Be glad you weren’t there when they stole the car.” Then he asked how old I was. When he realized we had grown up in the same era he said: “When we were young, people gave pregnant women their seats on the bus, the world has gone downhill and will only get worse.

Right I thought, the good old days... so great for women and blacks and gays and etc... a more civilized time indeed! But I kept decorously quiet. At the end of our amiable, somewhat bleak conversation he said: “Buy a gun”

The next day another detective called to say that after my car had been abandoned, it was set on fire and then towed to impound.

I told my stolen car story to a few friends and was surprised to find that absolutely everyone had a stolen car story. It’s a rite of passage, like having a bad time at the prom, so I thought: Let’s hear it!

If you would like to send me your stolen car story. Please do, but make it a bit shorter. I was too long-winded, but telling the story felt good and now I don’t need to ever tell it again!