THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 4, 1995 TAG: 9511030050
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
ON MONDAY NIGHT, I went out to supper at the home of friends. At about 10:30, I drove home to my condominium complex. I locked the car, pocketed the keys, walked the dog and went to bed.
Next morning, after walking to my assigned space in the condominium lot, I did a fast double take. No car.
Gone. Just a big square of black asphalt between the white lines where a beige '93 Honda Accord should have been.
I walked inside my condo unit and sat down on the sofa. Actually, I was so dumbfounded I sat on the dog. But she moved over and I sat. Thinking.
I remembered that the condominium association had issued new parking stickers and warned that stickerless cars would be towed after Oct. 31.
Hell hath no fury like a procrastinator who is technically correct. ``The idiots have towed my car a day before the deadline,'' I thought to myself.
Pumped with righteous indignation, I phoned the management company handling the condominium parking.
``My car is missing . . . towed I imagine. . . . This is an outrage. The letter you sent says `by Oct. 31.' Some fool has towed my car a day before the deadline.''
``No,'' the lady replied. ``We won't tow for some time. Perhaps you should phone the police.''
Uh-oh. My heart sank like a bucket tossed into a dry well.
In a matter of seconds I was transformed from the righteously indignant to the hapless victim. Car thieves. They must have jimmied the door, hot wired the car and driven away.
I lease rather than own the car. Which meant that unless my insurance was paid up, I would spend the rest of my life paying for the car dealer's vehicle. Panic.
I found the insurance papers in a drawer, carefully filed between some photos of my high school graduation and an Archie McPhee catalog.
Yep, I was insured. Next payment due a month from now. I dialed the police.
Yes, I had locked the car. No, I had no idea who might have taken it. Yes, I had all the spare keys in my possession. The officer was very polite. She gave me a report number for my insurance company.
I returned to the sofa, sat down on the dog again and wondered how I would get to work tomorrow, the next day and for the next few years.
The insurance company number had one of those recordings where you punch 1 if you know the name of the person you are calling, punch 2 if your car is yellow and has a busted headlight, 3 if calling from a pay phone while in a foreign country that begins with a vowel.
I finally got through to a woman who took my report of the missing car: ``You are being recorded, please start at the beginning and give a detailed description of everything that happened.'''
I know detailed when I hear it. She stopped my narrative and made me start over when I got to the part about my extra large flannel pajamas with the brown bear in a nightcap stitched on the pocket.
A miracle happened. She said the insurance company would provide me with a rental car. Hours later, the rental car agent picked me up at home and drove me to his company lot. ``Ninety percent of the cars that are stolen are recovered,'' he said. That was the good news.
The bad news, he said, was that most of the ones recovered are damaged. He recounted stories of stolen cars abandoned in the surf at Ocean View, of cars recovered that had been stripped so that the only recoverable parts were the ashtray and an axle. Swell. It was dark when we reached the lot.
I drove home slowly, fumbling for the proper control switches on the strange rental car. When I tried to dim the headlights, the windshield washers came on. And there was a pinging sound inside the car that continued until I turned the motor off outside my condo. I had clicked the seat belt tab into the a map compartment. Great.
Later, while walking the dog, we passed a brick house with loudspeakers that piped eerie organ music and shrieking sounds across the yard to the street, where trembling, costumed toddlers with tiny hands gripped their parents fingers. Halloween. I'd forgotten.
The underworld goblins had crawled out of their dark places and tricked me earlier than most . . . this time good and hard. by CNB