Stolen Truck

[3DOP]

So I go out to head to work at around 3 AM and my pickup isn't in the driveway! I go wake up my dear soulmate who is also my wife of 29 years to tell her about it and she hasn't put it anywhere like her big purse which is so full of junk that I hoped maybe it was there. It's just gone.

So at about 5 AM I tell this guy at Prov PDX that my truck is gone. He says I should call the cops. Maybe somebody'll run over somebody else and I'll get blamed. "Yeah", I think. I call the soulmate and she says, "Been there. Done that." Well, that's not an exact quote...she indicated that she called 911 right after I went to work in the car. "Good", I thought, so far as liability is concerned. "Bad", so far as getting the mower to the shop like I had hoped.

The next guy at Prov PDX laughs. He asks, "What year?" (with Vietnamemese accent..."What yeaoh?") "'78", says I. "To-yo-ta"? asks Duc? "Yeah." Haha haahaaha. "Any key start that!" You learn something every day I guess. Thanks for the sympathy, Duc. I didn't lock it up because who would take it? Also, because the real key doesn't open the door. How would I know that every key turns the ignition? Well...you learn something every day.

So go ahead a half day...its getting time to turn in for a guy that gets up at 2 AM. I let the phone ring. I don't want talk to anybody. The soulmate answers. "Really?", or something like that, she says. I kind of pick up on the idea that something is afoot. Its the truck! Its found! And its only about three miles away! Okay...I'm happy to stay awake to go get my little pickup! I gotta say I take a little pride in rolling around in that li'l old yellow pickup, even though I had decided that since I can't take it with me to heaven, its okay if I can't even keep it on earth.

So we go to the address that the cops told us to go. It's dark and hard to see, but I feel around for what is missing. There was a good towchain on the floor. Still there. I felt for a case of Hotties that my wife had bought for me. $20 worth of Hotties to keep me warm all winter. I have a little bit of frostbitten fingers and one in particular that goes frozen really easily...like when it is around 40 degrees out. They were gone. Well..."We're happy", or something like it, I said, "but the Hotties are gone that you gave me." Vancouver Police perked up. We could tell he was curious about a soulmate giving her soulmate "Hotties". We explain that these are some innocent hand and finger warmers (some kind of chemical reaction make this bag warm up that you put into your gloves). He became quickly bored with that kind of Hottie, but he was a very good guy. I love the police. What good people! So he wished us well and said he had to be on his way. He probably does this every night. But for the soulmate and I it was kind of new. We don't know who or what or why the old pickup was "borrowed" and left with so little real loss to us. God bless the police. God bless the thiefs. Please quit doing that. But thanks for not ruining the old rig. I love it more than ever now. Thought it was gone forever.

Soon enough...and all of our worldly things will be dust or belonging to another. But I am very grateful to the good God and His good civil magistrates for finding my little pickup for me for however long she continues to run.

That's all.

3DOP

[blackstrap]

If you have watched "Top Gear" you will remember the episodes where they tried to destroy a Toyota truck ,even to the point of putting it on the top of a building that was then demolished by explosives. 10+ story drop and it still started up and drove.

[Garden Girl]

Hello 3DOP...

Ohhh, I know the feeling... I had just gotten my job at San Fran St Univ (1978), but there was a waiting line for campus parking. So I had to park my car (8-yr old Chevy BelAir) along this busy residential street a couple blocks away from campus and walk... everyone did who didn't have a parking lot permit. I had only been at my job for about a three weeks so didn't know too many people.

Anyway, this one day I parked my car as usual, but when I came back to it that evening after work (5:00 PM... thank goodness still light at that time)... it was gone! What an empty feeling... I was standing there with this dumbfounded look on my face when this woman walking her dog came along and asked if I was all right. I told her about my car and she said she lived right there... and to come on in an use her phone to make any necessary calls. Who was I going to call? I was new to the area... my husband was traveling... so I called his office and just caught his secretary. She and her husband came and got me at my good Samaritan's house and took me to the police station to fill out my report, etc. Thankfully, insurance paid for a loaner. About a week later I get a call from the police that they had found my car... someone had simply driven it downtown and left it. No real damage except to the ignition.

But what an empty feeling standing there on the street, my car missing, new to San Francisco from So Cal, Riverside/San Bernardino, where I had lived all my life...

Your story brought back that memory... I would continue to live in the Bay Area for another 14 years, and then retire up here to the central Oregon coast.

GG

[Mudcat]

Cool that you got your old pickup back.

Things have a way of working out for the best, when you love God.

I wouldn't have been as cool as you were about it 3DOP.