Bye Bye Buble’

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Even a small gift could mean so much to someone today.

That was the fortune I picked off the floor of the # 18C bus. I was going to South Minneapolis. Riding the bus that day was a gift. It made me feel empowered. It reminded me I wasn't trapped even though I no longer had a car. I had told Jodi I would go over to her place and feed and walk the dogs that evening.

I had never ridden the bus before to get around the Twin Cities. I had ridden it in once to get to Milwaukee to catch a plane to St. Thomas and also two years ago in Sienna, Italy, going so far as to learn the Italian phrase for asking to buy bus fare. But for some reason riding the bus locally was too foreign for me since I was so used to driving a car in town and having it available at my whim. That is until that day.

I had walked out of my St. Paul apartment Tuesday morning at 8:40 a.m. I had parked around the corner because there were no spots close to my building. It was raining. When I walked around the corner, there was no Prelude parked there. My car was gone.

Where was my car?! Could it have been towed? I hadn’t parked illegally. I had parallel parked in the middle of the street. There was no broken glass. How did they get in? Where was it?

It was 8:45 a.m. and I needed to get to a class I was teaching. I called my friend Lisa and left a message. Then I called my friend Brian. “I’m walking my dog, he said, “but I can be there in a half hour.”

I made it to class only a half hour late. The students waited patiently. “Let’s start with a writing exercise,” I said. “Write about a time when you had something stolen.”

After class, Brian dropped me off at home. I called the police and they sent out a squad.

“Looks like the Fast and the Furious gang,” the officer said, looking off into the distance and reminding me of David Caruso from CSI Miami. “They’ll just strip it down for parts. We’ll probably find it in an alley somewhere. We’ll call you when we do.”

I was in shock. What would I do without my car?

My friend Jodi had joked that my Prelude was like a clown car. When she and I decided to foster Rex four months earlier, I hadn’t taken into account that my coupe was much too small for a 105-pound dog. We discovered this once when we loaded Rex into my car to do errands.

He didn’t want to stay in the back seat (which he filled side to side). Instead, he poked his head up front and tried helping me drive. One good thing was that he held down the emergency brake with his lion-sized paw. The brake had a tendency to come up while driving, so initially I appreciated the hand that day. I didn’t drive Rex around in my car much after that.

I opted out of listing my Facebook status as My Car was stolen! This was a good choice. I didn’t need all of my online “friends” emailing me a barrage of questions: What happened? Was it locked? Where was it? The questions would have increased the drama and that I did not need.

I just needed to keep my classes going for the week without interruption. At least I hadn’t left any valuables in my car. Unless you count the three Michael Buble’ CDs I had received for my recent birthday. Bye bye Buble’.

My car had been rummaged through on a previous summer’s night one year ago. Nothing was stolen. The CDs were strewn on the passenger’s seat. But the thief, not sharing my more mellow eighties music taste, left every last CD.

My next car would sit higher up, I vowed. I was getting sick of straining in drive-through windows to get cash and leaning around corners to see past the SUVs that surrounded me. My next car would be bigger.

And what happened to Robinhood? Why did today's thieves steal from the poor? No virtue. No morals. That's what happened.

Wednesday night, 6:30 p.m., my phone rang. It was the St. Paul police. My car had been recovered and was on its way to impound. From what the police could tell, there was no new damage, except that the stereo was missing.

I was instantly elated!

I called the impound lot. The car was actually on its way there.

“It’s $154.50 cash or $158 credit to get the vehicle out of impound,” the lady said.

I was so happy that I’d have transportation back that I didn’t get mad about the impound fees. My friends, however, got mad for me. “That’s just not right!” Merritt said. “You were robbed! You shouldn’t have to pay to get your stolen car back!”

I chose not to fight it. I fought the law and the law won.

This was only the beginning of songs that would run through my head while driving without a stereo.

Jodi drove me to the impound lot. The lot was a car graveyard. Would my car even start? Had the thief used all of the gas? Had they caused more damage than the lady who had been texting while driving (TWD) back in January and rear-ended my car?

I needed my license and my proof of insurance which had been in the glove compartment to claim the car. “You can go get it out of the car,” the lady said behind the thick glass window at the impound lot.

Jodi and I wandered through the creepy lot. Grass grew under row upon row of unclaimed cars. Some were smashed. One had an open hood forming a forty-five degree angle. We arrived at row 5. My black car was hidden at the end of the row. Yellow writing was scribbled on the windshield: 6/9/10, and a number for the police tracking I presumed. A note lay on the driver’s seat. The author had scribbled in black marker: You better move this car! I paid for this spot. If you don’t move your car, I’ll have it towed!

So the thief had left the car in someone’s reserved parking space. That must have been why it was found so fast. Thirty-six hours after being reported stolen is unusual.

I got in. The engine turned over. There was still a fourth of a tank of gas. Two of my Michael Buble’ CDs sat on the passenger’s seat. An empty hole occupied the stereo compartment. Wires dangled out from the space.

Now I saw the other items that had been left in the car. I had had other valuables in there. But these were not valuable to a thief. The list of articles included one worn pair of New Balance cross-trainers, a yellow flowered shoulder bag containing a favorite black baseball cap and a favorite pink sweatshirt, one left black shoe that was on its way to the shoe repairman, and my proof of insurance that would allow me to take my car home.

The thief had also left two bags of items I was taking to the thrift shop. The two bags contained books from childhood that I wouldn’t miss and five Mary Higgins Clark novels I’d never read again. I took them to Half Price Books the next day and got $4.75 for the lot. I spent fifty cents and bought a pristine paperback copy of Old Yeller, even though I already had a copy of the same edition. I knew I could find someone who would appreciate the treasure. The story had left me sobbing when I had read it a few years ago.

So I had two of my Buble’ CDs back. But the third one had been in the stolen stereo.

I relayed the CD theft to a friend. She said, "Look around your block. They probably saw it and said, 'Who's Michael Bubble?' It was probably tossed on the grass somewhere on your street."

I never found that CD--the newest CD--the one with Micheal Buble’ on the cover and looking out through yellow police tape—that one went bye bye.