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Monday, March 5, 2012

Criminals These Days

You know that crime is out of hand when a stolen car is left in your driveway and the police take seven hours before responding. Word of advice, if you ever have to call to your local precinct, be sure you sound hysterical and threaten to call back every five minutes like you have nothing better to do. Or say you have a batch of homemade cookies and a fresh pot of coffee and nobody to eat it.

 Early Friday morning, I woke up to find this green minivan parked at the foot of our community driveway. Seriously, I was on the phone the entire day trying to get this thing moved. I called 311, 911 our local precinct and our district councilman and was faced with this conundrum: the police can't tow it because it's on private property, the sanitation department won't tow it because it still has its license plates and a private tow won't tow it unless it knows who's paying. There was no registration on the windshield (maybe because it's stolen?) - so basically, we were screwed.

I honestly considered setting it on fire and calling the Fire Department. Those guys are way cuter, anyway. It took all the neighbors calling to finally get the police to check out the vehicle and guess what? They found out it was stolen. Duh. That's my $1300 of local taxes (just the city tax, folks) working hard, right there.

All I can say is, these car thieves are at the top of my shit list. I hope they are condemned to an eternity of crossing the George Washington Bridge. East bound. Without an EZ pass. Really, why couldn't they dump the car on the street like every other criminal? And the worst part about it was - it's a butt-ugly car.

Criminals, these days. Just rude, I tell you.

And if you're wondering, those are iron window guards on my window. I am not in Martha Stewart Jail.

14 comments:

  1. Somebody somewhere is trying to remember what they did last thursday night asking dude, where's my car?

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    1. I should've looked for Ashton Kutchner in the trunk, huh?

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  2. You should have torched it. I'm all for calling in cute firemen. Obviously.

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    1. Grrrr - if they showed up I'd bake them Guinness brownies!

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  3. "You know that crime is out of hand when a stolen car is left in your driveway and the police take seven hours before responding. Word of advice, if you ever have to call to your local precinct, be sure you sound hysterical and threaten to call back every five minutes like you have nothing better to do. Or say you have a batch of homemade cookies and a fresh pot of coffee and nobody to eat it."

    That's all you needed to say. The post could have ended there and I would have been satisfied, but you made it even BETTER by saying more.


    I'm with Bridget - torch it next time.

    The G is Silent

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  4. Really??? It is an ugly car, I agree. I don't like this shade of the color green.

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    1. Aren't you surprised the owner even reported it stolen? He probably said "Take my car...please!"

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  5. What a shame. But that’s reality in any big city in America. All the petty crime has to wait. But if some joker is strolling along the sidewalk with a knife between his teeth, they’ll send the S W A T team to take him out, in a matter of minutes.

    Once upon a time, we lived in LA and someone broke into our community garage, ransacked three cars, including ours, stealing a few odds and ends from inside each vehicle. When we called LAPD to report the crime, they told us to “drive the car to......so we can finger print it”!

    It wasn’t until my wife called her contact at the LA County Sheriff’s office (foreign diplomats have a unique way of getting local law enforcement to move their ass before a situation becomes and international incident), before a squad car came and took a report.

    Last I heard, LAPD won’t even show up and make a police report unless someone is injured. What the hell are we paying taxes for nowadays?

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    1. My neighbor had all her tires stolen. The police only showed up after she got our District Councilman to poke them! LAPD is why I would NEVER go to LA voluntarily.

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  6. You should move to Arkansas, Land of Nothing Happens Here. I mean, our cops still suck, but at least they're excited to see some occasional action.

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    1. If the firemen are as cute there as they are here, then I just might.

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  7. See, you have big town problems! Around here, that would be excitement. The whole neighborhood would come out to talk about it. We'd all discuss who we should call to come and get it. Then the police would come (probably all three cars!) and we'd all discuss with them who's car we thought it was and who we thought stole it. Then we'd call somebody's uncle's brother's son who just happens to own a tow truck to take it over to the parking lot by Kmart to park it until someone notices their green van is missing.

    But like a said , this is a REALLY small town :)

    ps I would blog it just like you did hehehe

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    1. That's what blogs are for, right? Cheaper than therapy.

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