Every so often something happens that makes me want to collect up all the dregs of society and subject them to 2000 hours of me singing Celine Dion hits off-key.  I really, really don’t like people who indulge in stealing, lying or cheating of other people or corporations; it just gives me a yucky taste in my mouth.

Today we were the victims of such an act.

My mother went to work this morning and a couple of hours later, my brother, who was at home, received a phone call from some policemen who were at our door [his room is in the basement and the nature of our house is such that the basement is soundproof and you cannot hear a thing once you descend to those depths of the house].  When the cops realized that somebody was at home, they asked him to come to the door.  He asked why there were there and they said they’d rather tell him in person which of course got my brother all nervous, and he ran to the top floor of our house to welcome in two serious-looking cops.  They asked if someone driving a blue minivan with [our license plate] had filled up gas at a local gas station and then left without paying. 

This was puzzling because if someone had in fact done this, it would have had to be my mother, since she drives the van 100% of the time during the week and in all the times I’ve been to a gas station with her, I’ve never known her to forget to pay.  As my brother was recounting the story to me, my heart had pretty much froze after he said “two cops came to the door asking about the van” because I assumed something had happened to my dear, cute mother.  Thank God that was not the case.

Instead we discovered that our van had been stolen.

Stolen.  Somebody walked onto a parking lot, spied an automobile that was not theirs, and felt completely justified to take it and drive off.  I cannot believe it.

What I later found out was that after my brother relayed the message from the policemen to our mother, she confirmed that she hadn’t gone to fill up the gas tank and thought that somebody in the family must have taken the car from the parking lot for a fill up as we were nearly out of gas.  She quicky rejected that idea because a) my father, who usually takes the bus to work, had taken the other car with him and b) I don’t have a keys to the van [and my other siblings do not drive].  Following a hunch, she left work and went to the parking lot and it was then that she discovered that the car was gone.

And that is when her calls to the police, the automobile insurance people, and my sister and I began.

My mom is quite attached to our dear, almost-12 year old van.  Clearly it isn’t worth a lot monetarily, but it means a lot to my parents.  It was the first and only new car they have ever bought in their lives and the car saw the family through many trips to sporting events for my brothers, Nigerian parties, camping with family, visits to friends in the province and also an unforgettable trip to Florida where the van’s transmission had the audacity to die on us.  My mom, a huge football fan, had placed an Ottawa Renegades [the team is now defunct] sticker on the back of the van and it was how we would recognize our van from all the other vans like it, and during hockey season my mom proudly attaches her Ottawa Senators flag to the van. The van has been good to us and really it’s the only conveyance that comfortably seats all six of us.  Also my mom had some casettes in that car and other things that have a sentimental value to her [and ties to Nigeria for her] and I know she’ll be quite sad if she never recovers those items.

But still, there are some bright sides to the story.  The most obvious is that thank God no one in the family was injured during the taking of the car, and that my mom didn’t happen to stumble across the thief(ves) while s/he/they were taking the car.  Also, my mom had wanted to fill up the gas yesterday but for some reason she decided not to.  If the tank hadn’t been that close to empty, we wouldn’t have disocvered that the van was missing until the end of the day.  We can only hope that the gas station’s cameras got a good image of who could have stolen our van.

So now we’re down to one car that is built for five people, not six.  It’s a good thing the spring weather is upon us because I think we may be investing in a roof rack for a slender family member soon.

[not a WG entry but there are some nice words in there, no?]

Filed under: Adventure, Family, Reading & Writing by jummy