When my mother called from America to give me the news (I’m in Israel trying to be spiritual), I was in the middle of a scrumptious Sushi dinner (kosher of course) with my gay boyfriend.
She begins with, “Um, I don’t know quite how to break this to you, but I have some kind of bad news for you.”
Well, at least it wasn’t bad news about people, or else she would have used her special terminology for that. So I knew it must be some material thing.
“So,” I said, finishing my mouthful of rice and raw fish, “what’s going on?”
“Your can was stolen,” she says resolutely. I burst out laughing. My car was stolen. OK, Universe, what else are you going to fling at me? I already found out with an unpleasant bang that I have bedbugs (yes, BEDBUGS, ugh), and that is foremost in my mind right now, since I am phobic about creatures climbing on my body at night when I am sleeping, sucking my blood. FUCK. Compared to that, having my car stolen is a laughable piece of cake.
I mean, WTF? It’s only a piece of metal and plastic and assorted other material junk cobbled together. Yeah, yeah, it’s only two years old. Big fucking deal, I have about $6,000 in equity on it, so it it gets totaled I’m in the black for a down payment on another one.
Oh. I haven’t told you the story yet.
OK. So when I go to Israel, which is several times a year, my dear cousin is kind enough to let me park it in his apartment complex lot. It’s a big lot, and nobody ever objects. And his apartment complex is in a nice neighborhood with a low crime rate, so it’s safe enough. Or so I thought.
But. Some scallawag criminal type had the forethought to steal a dealer tag, take off my wonderful vanity tag that says AZAMRA, which means “I shall sing” in ancient Hebrew, from a psalm by King David composed 3000 years ago more or less, and put his nasty dealer tag on instead. So this ain’t no random joy-rider. It’s a professional, is what it is. And how the dude gained entry to the car is a mystery.
OK. Next scene: either this same thief, or his designee, gets totally shitfaced drunk in the middle of the day and decides to go somewhere via the high-speed beltway around the city which will remain unnamed. He’s cruising in the passing lane when he PASSES OUT and the vehicle (MY vehicle) rolls to a stop, blocking the passing lane.
A random ambulance in cruise mode happens to come along and sees this vehicle stopped in the passing lane and decides to investigate. They pull up alongside and lean on the siren. The driver of MY car wakes up abruptly and STOMPS on the gas, resulting in a game of caroms, bouncing off of and sideswiping FOUR different vehicles before crashing into a police cruiser that had blocked the road up ahead.
Said policeman gets out and makes the guy, who is still alive and conscious, blow for alcohol level, and the guy blows 0.5! That, my friends, is officially incompatible with life, except for professional drinkers whose livers are all tuned up. So of course the dude is now in jail.
Unfortunately, two of the people he hit are in the hospital. I know nothing about their condition, but send them healing juju and apologies that even though I personally had nothing to do with it, it WAS my car after all that plowed into them at high velocity.
Now I’m dealing with the intricacies of trying to manage a car theft and subsequent use of the car for criminal activities and vehicular battery, and the fact that my car is impounded in a police car pound, from 6,000 miles away. My cousin is acting as my agent, which is a good thing for me but a pain in the ass for him. Many questions remain unresolved, and I wonder if answers will bubble to the surface as the facts unfold.
Strange things have already happened, such as, when I called my insurance company to open a file and give them the police report, I discovered that a certain attorney (for whom? the crook? an ambulance chaser?) had called it in and a case was already open. I didn’t know that unauthorized people could get access to one’s insurance company. Well, now I do.
At least this has lightened my mood up (except for the people who were injured), because it seems that just when you think the Universe is out to get you (bedbugs), you find out that….the Universe is out to get you! So I may as well give over being depressed and find something to enjoy, because you never know what’s going to happen next.
