Mere Hours After Solving Caribou Coffee Mystery, Juice Encounters a New Puzzle

We have a new mystery on our hands, my friends!

First thing on my to-do list for tomorrow: Get rid of the Kia. Finally! [STRONG ORCHESTRAL CHORD; FADE OUT] But, when I returned from work this evening, the Kia, which had been parked across the street, was no longer there. [FADE IN SPOOKY BACKGROUND MUSIC]

Interlude--(E-mail exchange with Geoff yesterday):

G: (Saying vaguely that he is considering buying a car)

UJ: I know where you can get a great little car for free.

G: Free? No, my friend, with all the work that car needs, I’m sure I would find it quite dear.

UJ: I am giving it to Arc's Value Village. They take cars in any condition and will even tow for free. But first I have to find the damn license tabs that I bought and then misplaced and now am probably going to get a ticket for because my car is just sitting on the side of the street, covered in snow, without tabs, looking completely abandoned and demanding to be ticketed. Grumble.

G: Well, what’s Arc Value Village’s policy with regards to the two vagrants who are probably living in your abandoned Kia at this point?

UJ: I think I can just place a dollar value on them to add to my charitable giving receipt.

G: Ahh, yes, as provided for in the subsection of the Internal Revenue Code dealing with the donation of vagrants to non-profit organizations.

UJ: I'm so glad I didn't play Weboggle in Tax!

(By way of background: One of the things that happened during my no-blogging phase is that I bought a cute little new car. It's a limited edition Volkswagen Triple White Beetle Convertible. I love it! And hence, the Kia purge.)

I called Shad to ask if he knows where the Kia is. He has no idea. I call Matt, who, as a former police officer, informs me that it could have been towed due to the outdated tabs situation, but probably not, since the tabs are barely expired (November 30), and because a search of the plates would show that I had purchased the tabs (which are lost somewhere in the bowels of my home).

I call the impound lot. They do not have the car.

I go out to investigate. As discussed above, the car looked abandoned. We had moved it across the street during the last snow emergency, but it had since been plowed in during a non-snow-emergency plowing run and was covered in about six inches of snow. At the crime scene, I note that (1) there is no broken glass (not surprising, actually, since we don't lock the doors); (2) there is a large footprint in the snow right about where the door is; (3) there are no piles of snow around the vehicle, which would indicate that someone had brushed the car off to drive it away. There are not really any footprints around it, in fact. It seems like there would be footprints if someone had gotten under the hood or whatever you do when you hot-wire a car. Is that what the thieves do these days when they don't have a key? Hot-wire? I don't know. Anyway, I'm guessing it was towed. There's no key, as I mentioned. Shad and I have the keys. Plus there is probably a smattering of keys around the city, in the hands of my good friends who have had to deal with my various locking-the-keys-in-the-car phases over the years. But I can assure you none of these folks stole the Kia. No one seems to be particularly fond of that poor car.

I call the police. They refer me back to the impound lot. The impound lot folks look up the vehicle again. They still do not have it. They ask what time I arrived home--5:30. They tell me to wait and call them back at 7:00, because the towing company has 90 minutes to deliver a vehicle once the order-to-tow comes in. So, you know, just in case it was towed in the one minute before I arrived home.

I call them back at 7:30 and talk to a guy named Brian. Brian looks up the car and tells me it is not in the lot. I tell him I think it's stolen. I don't have any other explanation. He doesn't buy it. Give me the full VIN number, he says. I give it. He looks it up. Nope, it's not in there. Finally, he says, sighing, "Look, these cars just don't get stolen." Me: "I know! It's a piece of crap!" Him: "No, that's not what I meant. They have their own anti-theft devices." "Like being so shitty that no one would ever take them?" "No." "Oh." "Well, hold on a minute."

He calls the towing company they use. He calls some other folks. He's gone for a while. He discovers that it isn't on a list anywhere (i.e. there is no outstanding order for it to be towed or anything like that). Finally he comes back. "You don't have a kid or a relative that might have driven it around or something?" "Nope." "Well, I just can't believe that someone would have stolen this car." "I know! I can't believe it either! I thought I was going to have to put some fresh-baked cookies and the title in the front seat before someone would take it!" Silence. Finally, he says, "Well, crazier things have happened." He doesn't quite know how to take me. I am a bit giddy for someone who has just had her car stolen. He is wary and doesn't really want to file a police report. He thinks it is impossible that it was stolen. I don't know what else to do, either. So he suggests we get the stolen card started, wait out the night, and check the impound lot again in the morning. If it's still not there, they'll send the cops out to file a report.

The situation speaks for itself, right? Do I need to make the obvious point that it is hysterically funny that my car was possibly stolen on the day before I planned to give it away? No, gentle readers. I trust you. I am going keep any energy I would have expended on that particular bit of commentary and put it towards enjoying a delicious meal at Cafe Maude with my husband tonight.