Friday, July 1, 2011

That's the brakes!

Many years ago I bought a Honda Civic. It was a 'sports edition' and it was on the showroom floor. I bought it at night and was picking it up the following day. From the minute I drove it out of the dealership I hated it. I hated the color. It was red and it was way more red than it looked under the lights in the showroom. The car was nice but I still hated it simply because it was ugly (to me) and I couldn't wait to get rid of it. Once I was close to my lease being up (I suffered through the most of the lease) I bought an Acura RSX. It was a brand new make and there weren't many of them on the road yet. I loved that car(so much that when that lease was up I got another one). It was a champagne color , it was a stick and it drove beautifully.

One rainy night after work, I was watching T.V. in my bedroom (I lived at home with my mom since it was years ago). My mom was out and she came home and heard the T.V. on in my room and opened the door. She said " Oh I didn't know you were home, where is your car?". I said " UMMMM it's outside in the street". She said " No it's not". At first I thought she was being funny, until I looked out the window and my car was gone. I freaked out. My baby was kidnapped and I had no idea what to do.

I got up and ran next door in the rain to my neighbor's house and knocked violently. He opened the door and I said " Someone stole my car, did you see anything?,can you go get them?" I apparently thought that my neighbor was a superhero. He grabbed his coat and said he would go look around. I ran back into my house and called the cops.

Ring Ring : " Police Department".
Me: " Someone stole my car"
PD: " Where do you live"
Me: gave the address
PD: " Could someone in your family have borrowed it?"
Me: " No it's a stick, no one else knows how to drive it"
PD: " Ok we will send a car out"
Me: " Ok hurry up she has been kidnapped"
Click.

I went back outside and started to walk over to my neighbor's because I wanted to go with him to find the kidnapper. My mom (I think, unless it was my sister I don't know because I was so distraught), pointed out in the distance and said " UM is that your car?". We all looked down the end of the street and there she was.. my baby.

So apparently when I came home I was in a hurry to get out of the rain. I had been shopping and had bags in the car, I grabbed the bags and ran inside. As mentioned previously, my car was a stick. I neglected to pull the emergency brake up. My car rolled down the street, it must have hit a sewer cover and it then crossed the street and landed up and over the curb of a house at the END of the street.

My first thought was ' Holy shit, thank God there were no kids outside ( it was raining so there wasn't and it wouldn't have happened if it was raining because I would have paid better attention) and that there were no other cars parked in the street. It had to have gone down the street pretty quickly and I would assume it happened right after I got out and ran for the door. So as I am running inside the house the car was already rolling down the street. Jackass.

We all run down to the car, my neighbor gets it off the curb and drives it back. The person who lived there never knew. It didn't damage anything, including the car (or so I thought until a week later when I blew a tire).

I realized that now I have to call the cops back. Not having any idea what I am going to say but knowing that I have to call them to stop the baby search, I call.

Ring Ring : " Police Department"
Me: "Yes I called about 10 minutes ago to report my car stolen."
PD: " Ok?"
Me:" I want to report it unstolen."
PD: " Oh you found it. Where was it?"
Me: " ummmm"
PD: " Let me guess, a family member borrowed it and didn't tell you."
Me: " Yep! Thanks bye".
Click

That was a long time ago. I still drive a stick and every time I get out of my car I double check to make sure the brake is up (great addition to my OCD issues).

Moral of the story: Being an idiot could be very dangerous.