Let’s Start with Last Thursday

I have a lot to tell you guys about the last few days.  A million things have gone on, but let’s just start with Thursday.

It was a perfectly normal day.  The plan was to go to work and run to the post office on my lunch break to mail out  about 8 books that I had sold the day before.  After work, I was planning on heading down to my parent’s and going over the seating charts for the wedding with them.

The morning was a usual morning and around 11 am, I ran to the post office.  But once there, the machine I use to print stamps was out of order and I didn’t want to wait in line.  I took my packages back out to my car and threw them in the backseat, figuring I would just mail them after work from another post office.  I got back to work at about 11:30 and parked a little closer to the building than normal (one of the perks about running an errand at mid-day).

So back to work and 5 pm can’t come fast enough.  In fact, I dip out at about 4:45 pm.  I head out to the parking lot and at first, I can’t find my car.  This sometimes happens after running errands at mid-day.  I park in pretty much the same spot every morning, so it throws me off a little if I get a closer spot during the day.  Our parking lot isn’t huge, but it’s not tiny either. And I can’t find my car.  So I start to feel like an idiot and decide to walk up and down every row looking for it.  After two rows, I call Bird and tell her to just talk to me so it looks like I’m just talking on the phone in the parking lot rather than just wandering around like an idiot.

Well, it was after walking throughout the whole lot and not finding it that I remembered an email we had got the day before from facilities warning about suspicious activity in the parking lot.  This memory added to the sinking feeling that I already had.  So I hung up with Bird and went back inside and found a coworker and asked her to drive me up and down every row just to double check.  I definitely wasn’t going to call the police until I was absolutely sure it wasn’t out there because that would just be so embarrassing if they came out and found it.  The second search yielded the same results.

I headed inside and talked to the security desk.  I told them my car was missing and asked if they had any security cameras out there.  Of course they don’t.  So we called the police , reported a stolen car and they sent an officer out to file a report.  The policeman was very nice and sympathetic.  He didn’t seem too surprised about the theft and I now know why as he informed me that my car was the fourth one stolen this month from that very parking lot!

We talked through a lot of stuff and he told me on average, they find stolen cars after about one week.  No guarantee of condition though.

I called Bird and she came and picked me up and on the way to my parent’s I tried to make a mental list of everything that was in there.  There wasn’t really anything that was super valuable, but I guess it all adds up.  I had my stereo system, sunglasses, a gift card, and a ton of sporting goods in the trunk: ice skates, rollerblades, winter boots, sleeping bag, broomball equipment, tennis racquet, etc.  I’m not even sure what it would all add up to to replace it.  I’m just glad there wasn’t a computer or anything like that in there.

By far the greatest loss was the car itself.  And it is such an inconvenience at possibly the worst time with just two weeks to go until the wedding.

Oh, and did I mention it was my last day parking in that parking lot.  The next day my department was moving to a new building in a different city.  So that is just bad luck.

Bird bought me chipotle for dinner to try and cheer me up and then we headed to my parent’s and ran through the seating charts.  My dad and I looked up my insurance policy and I’m covered for theft but I have a $1,000 deductible.  I held off on calling them until Friday.

My parent’s loaned me one of their vehicles that night, so I’m driving around a mini-van for a while but it’s a lot better than having no car.

Bird and I talked about what we were going to do and I think we will just hang off on making any decisions about anything until we are back from the honeymoon.  We did a little dreaming about what kind of car we would get if my car never shows up and we get to go car shopping.

So that was my Thursday.  Not a very good day.