My car -the wondervan, complete with my purse, was stolen from the daycare center at 4:20 on Halloween. Credit cards, checkbook, several forms of ID, 3 car seats, stroller, swimming things, my diaper bag, the camera, cell phone, the kids favorite stuffed animals (which ironically we leave in the car to 'guard it') CDs etc. I was nearly hysterical when I walked outside and it was gone. I mean, someone had parked THEIR car in the spot where my car was supposed to be!! I started shrieking, "My car! My car!" and apparently people thought that one of my kids had been hit by a car.

Ironically, the whole reason I was picking up the kids that day was that I had taken the day off to run errands and then get the kids early to take photos and stuff for Halloween. (Last year I got no photos because traffic was awful and I got home late.) This year I spend the whole evening handing out candy while on the phone calling every credit card company and bank!

Even more amusingly - even though I called in all the cards, Visa made a mistake and didn't cancel. These people rang up so many charges in 24 hours visa actually called me on Thursday Nov 1 to say something odd was up. (Umm, well, I talked to Kim at this number and here is my reference number saying I cancelled it.) And as this guy is talking to me he's like - they are using your Visa card RIGHT NOW in Greensbourgh NC! So I call the police (the guy in charge of my case is gone and no one else can access it - IE we don't care)

So I then call the Greensbourgh police - who say, and I quote, "How do you know they are still in your car." And I say, they might not be, but they are using my credit card, isn't that a crime? So she says, well, if the car is in the system and we stop it for a crime, then it will appear as stolen. But I guess actually LOOKING for the car would be too much. It appears once you steal a car, as long as you don't speed, you can drive around as much as you want. And since my car JUST got 2 years worth of tags that very morning, they have a long time to drive. And I'm thinking, can't you at least get the rent-a-cop at Wall-Mart to arrest those assholes with my card? Wouldn't that be something?

Anyway, they found my car one week later - technically very early Friday morning - in the 73rd precinct of Brookland NY. They called at like 2am in the morning and I can hear that deep Brooklyn accent as the guy is tallking into the machine. They tell me the name of the arresting officer and that the car was towed to Trio Collision. We were REALLY lucky in that they caught someone driving it. An alert NY policeman say a bunch of teenagers in my 40 thousand dollar car at midnight at it struck him as odd - so he thought he'd follow them to see what was up (mind you, somehow they got NY plates for my car) so these stupid teenagers decided to try to outrun the cop (yeah, right, in a minivan?)and started running red lights and stuff and got pulled over. Otherwise it would still be missing! Happily these fools did not wrap my car around a tree, and were still having fun with it and thus didn't burn it. However, they did rip all the electronic stuff out -- but, quickly realized they couldn't pawn or reuse any of it because (Doh!) the shit was actually installed and BUILT into the roof. So the Trio Collision guy says there are a lot of random electronic wires and stuff sitting on the floor and the chairs.

Another funny thing. Well, when we got the car Hubby went and bought extra carpet, like remnants, and cut it to fit the floor of the car with slits for the seats. This way we could always pull the carpet out if there was an (ahem) accident and clean it and put it back in. When he did this originally I thought we was nuts and made big time fun of him. . . for about 2 days until Pumpkin spilled a whole chocolate shake on the floor. We simply pulled out the rug, steam cleaned it, let it dry in the sun, put it back in. So, even if they've trashed the floor -- we'll simply pull out the rug and buy a new remnant. happy happy joy joy! So guess who is making fun of whom now?

Friday afternoon the ADA (Assistance District Attorney - they all call themselves ADA, as in "This is ADA Write" and I'm thinking, you're Ms. Ada Wright? The guy handling my case was Mr. Wright, the King County prosecutor. Supposedly they were going to mail me stuff on my 'case'. So at this point I don't have a case number or anything -- all I know is that my car is damaged inside and is being held as 'evidence'. What exact crime was committed with or in my car is not revealed. Um, hello, I really need my car back!

So two days later Mr. Wright was transferred to sex crimes. At this point, no one knows where my car is - execpt me! I know it's at Trio Collision, I just can't do anything to prove it's my car and that I'm allowed to have it back. Ummmm, I just talked to him yesterday, what is the problem here? (Funny tangent, from Mr. Wright's voice and words it is apparent that he is a flaming gay black man, so it is very funny that he's now in sex crimes.) So no one has any idea what I'm talking about, my original VA tags aren't even on the car anymore - so I have no idea how to get it back.

So finally we get paperwork from the Police saying we can get our car. This is Saturday November 17, the week before Thanksgiving. How are we going to get from DC to Brooklyn to get our car? And I SO wanted to score a trip to New York and See ground zero! But we could never get a good day to go up there, and Hubby really had no interest in seeing ground zero and I wasn't sure I wanted to go up there by myself and then drive back by myself. Anyway, so then we had to Fed Ex a key to Trio Collision - since the car was towed no one even knew if it would run! And (does the nightmare never end?) Trio Collision is in some horrible part of Brooklyn and under lock, key, and barbed wire fence - so it took like over a week to get the key to the car. Fed Ex could never gain entry so we finally got the insurance people involved who had some guy go and pick up the key from the Fed Ex holding center. (Even MORE paperwork to allow him to get the key) so that he could go get the car and drive it to our house. (More paperwork so that this total stranger could drive our car out of the secure lot.)

So the car finally arrived home on November 29. From a distance the car looks great. It is only when you get close that you can see that nearly every panel has some problem. It looks like the kid ran into a chain link fence while fleeing police, and the real left panel is really bashed in. Lots of random scratches and stuff. And in the week that they were driving it around they put about 2,000 miles on it. (I had just changed the oil that very morning! What luck!)

Finally - we're getting the money from the insurance people soon. Cool thing - so I had to fill out this huge worksheet of everything that was in the car that we lost. I made the workshop up in excel and included where we got the item and when (gift from dad, gift from Terri, gift from grandparents etc.) and we ended up with 1,200 dollars worth of lost stuff. (The price of stupidity.) With photocopies of receipts and owners manuals - you should have seen the package I sent her! I wanted to make sure we didn't have any arguments about our 75 dollar stroller or a fabulous coat or camera! There were like 35 items (I had groceries in the car) and most of them I had receipts for. So we were well documented! Apparently we have top of the line insurance (praise God) and we've been paying extra all this time for "replacement value." So what usually happens is that they depreciate your items and send you a shitty check, and then when you send in your receipts from the new items, they pay you replacement value. So I say, that's cool, we've already bought a number of things (car seats, soccer balls, camera, groceries) so I'll start sending you receipts. We hang up. And as I'm talking to Hubby saying we're going to have to jump through hoops to get the value of our stuff - she calls back! 1 She's like - I trust that you are going to buy these things and I don't want to deal with the receipts, so I'm just going to cut you a check for what you've claimed. How cool is that! I'm happy because I'm so not in the mood to send her 35 receipts for shit. And the car also has some coverage for stolen items, which will cover more than half of the deductible from the home owners.

So the father I get from the hysteria of my car missing, the better things are turning out.

Quick Note on ME
I'm busy as all get out as usual. Saturday we had swimming, then a party. Sunday was another party. Tuesday we had dance, soccer and then I took Pumpkin to the PTA meeting with me -I have to go because I'm the treasurer. Aside, he was REALLY good! There were some other kids there, and they were playing a game ~scrabble?~ where you have a timer and have to spell things. They weren't really playing 'right' in that you could grab any letters you wanted, not just ones in your hand. Anyway, Pumpkin can spell "no" and "cat" so he had a total blast and was quiet and good.

This weekend is a complete mess because the PTA is holding a Santa's Workshop and breakfast. Of course, very few parents have signed up as volunteers so I am going to be there all day Friday and again all day Saturday. Which I would love to do but I have to get a sitter for Precious and Stealth Baby on Friday. (Grrrr.) Pumpkin is going to stay with me on Friday and help bag items, which he will love doing, I'm sure! However, I guess I can't complain about other parents not helping if I'm not willing to do it myself? Right? I have to laugh because I'm thinking I should just give the PTA 57 bucks that I'm going to pay in babysitting and then stay home with the kiddos! Sometimes it's hard to be supermom.

Quick Note on Pumpkin
Pumpkin can now count to 100 with ease. If he's terrorizing Precious in the car we have a new "time out for him" which is I ask him to count from 900 to 1000. He can't do this and the thought of it scares him. :+) We also count to 1000 by "cheating" (100, 200, 300 etc.) We play this game "I love you more" so I say "I love you 100" and he'll say "I love you 500!" and I say "I love you 900" and he says "I love 1001" etc. It's a lot of fun and he understands which is more. We also play this awful game with Pokemon cards - it is basically WAR, because the cards have amounts on them. And sometimes they have 2 amounts, so he has to add them up to see which is more. He just loves this game and can play forever. Funny story - he's trying to learn "strategy" See, first off he always chooses the highest cards for himself, thus insuring that he always wins. Whoever puts the card down first is at a disadvantage because then next person can choose a higher card from his hand to lay down and win. So we alternate putting the cards down first. Then when Pumpkin puts down a super high card (Zaptos is worth 160, wow!) I put down a crummy card (Squirtle, 10 points) Well, Pumpkin figured out that I was giving him crummy cards when he knew he had given me higher cards (after every game we each get 10 cards again, which Pumpkin gives out) So I told him I was saving my high cards for the end of the game so that I would win some. So Pumpkin decides to do this to, except he doesn't know what he's doing - only that since I think it is a good idea then it must be a good idea. So he semi-randomly holds back his high cards, even when I put down a high card he could beat and capture.

Lord I'm happy!!