Revenge is Sweet, Prevention Sweeter

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I vaguely remembered hearing a news story about a rash of car break-ins in the Dallas area. It seems that the brazen thieves are smashing windows of cars, even when the owners are home, and stealing computers, wallets and all manner of things that owners leave in their cars at night. If the owners aren’t home, they use garage door openers left in the cars to break into the houses and steal.

During my eleven and a half hours of driving Texas highways today (so that I could work for two hours—–yes, I’m that hungry), I had plenty of time to chew on that subject. I remembered a story I was told several years ago when I was working in Mission, Texas down near the Mexico border:

When I came in to the school that morning, the librarian asked me what hotel I had chosen for my home-away-from-home that week. When I told her, her eyes grew wide. She asked, “Shelly, you aren’t driving a Suburban are you?”

I said, “No, I’m driving a Chrysler minivan.”

She sighed with relief. “Oh, good,” she said. “The thieves don’t want those.”

I told her that I didn’t particularly want it either, I wasn’t thrilled about driving a “Mommy van,” because it didn’t fit my Bohemian image of myself. But, what in the world was she talking about?

She told me that there were reports in the paper every day of Suburbans being stolen and driven to Mexico. They were stolen from hotels and parking lots and never seen again. It seems that car theft is a large problem in the Valley, and thieves loved to target the Suburbans, because they were popular in Mexico. But, she laughed as her library aide came into the office. She said, “Isabella, tell Shelly about your Suburban.”

Isabella told me this:

“My Suburban was stolen from the Wal-Mart parking lot. Fortunately, we didn’t leave any important papers in the car that told who we were or where we lived. A friend of ours had recently had a car stolen, and the thieves found their house and broke in while they were gone. They took everything of value. We learned from that, I’m telling you.

But, when we reported the theft of our Suburban to the police, they just shook their heads and told us we would never see it again. We filed a claim with out insurance company, but they argued with us. They didn’t want to pay us, and we had to fill out all kinds of papers and claims. It took us almost a year to get the claim settled! But, finally they paid us, so we could pay off the loan on that Suburban.

Last month, about four months after the claim got settled, we had gone down to Wal-Mart to get groceries. There in the parking lot was a Suburban that looked exactly like ours, but it had Mexico license plates. It so happened that I was still carrying the keys to our old Suburban, I don’t know why. But, I took them out of my purse and tried them on the door of that automobile. It opened!”

I said, “Isabella, what did you do?”

She said, “What could I do? I got in the car and drove away! The people who had been driving it had been shopping that day, and there was a brand new lawn mower and some kitchen stuff in the back. I drove it to the police station and told the officer at the desk what I had done. I tried to turn in those things, but he shook his head and laughed. He said, ‘Lady, I never saw you, I never heard your story, get out of the station and don’t tell me any more.’

So, we sold the Suburban the next week, and paid off our new car. Now we have a brand new lawn mower.”

“Isabella,” I said. “Did you tell the insurance company?”

She shrugged and grinned, “In about a year we will.”

Revenge is Sweet!

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I’ve snickered about Isabella’s story several times over the years, but as I was driving home from Houston today, I realized with a start that I didn’t learn from it! I have done nothing to protect against identity theft in the case of my car being stolen. I glanced around the trash heap in my car to realize what a gold mine a thief would have:

There are papers scattered everywhere with our home address. My bank deposit book was in the car, and some contracts with my social security number on them! The garage door opener resides on the shelf on the dash. Sometimes I leave my cell phone in the car. Most of the time, my spinning wheel and display (which are necessary in order for me to perform and make my living) rock around in the back of the car. If I didn’t have those, I would be out of a job! Sometimes when I come in from a trip dead tired, I don’t bother to take my portable computer out of the car! If a thief got that, he’d have my whole life in his hands.

No, I’m not about to give you my address!! What I’m going to do is go clean out my car first thing in the morning (and hope a thief doesn’t find me tonight). I’m going to make sure that there is nothing in that car that I can’t afford to lose. I want you all to comment and tell me that you have checked your car to make sure that your whole life can’t be stolen!

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And, while you are thinking about it, click over to The Savvy Boomer, and check out his article called Guard your cell phone like you would your wallet. Loss or theft of a cell phone is another one of those things we don’t think about before the fact.

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But, don’t think for a minute that the whole world is dishonest! Yesterday my stepson came home devastated. He had lost his wallet! It had the money to buy his mom her Mother’s Day present and his prom tickets! You can bet he was totally devastated. He even cleaned his room in the vain hope that it was hidden under the flotsam and jetsam. No luck.

Today, at school, he checked at the office to see if anyone had turned it in to the lost and found. Hallelujah! Some kind soul had found it and returned it with everything in it! Hooray for honest people!

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[Nicholas at A Gentleman's Domain had a good suggestion in comments.]

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Guarding Against Identity Theft
2. Jonesing for Blogging
3. Plumb Tuckered Out
4. Link Love–Stories Beget Stories
5. A Ditty For Idiot Drivers

Tagged as: humor, Memories, Storytelling