today, after getting home from work, there's a message on the answering machine. the cops found my car. who knows what condition it is in. I may have to wait until monday to find out. cross your fingers...

called the police and they told me to come get it way the fuck up in north philadelphia. I have to pay towing and storage fees. unbelievable. they won't tell me what condition it is in.

okay, so worse case scenario: the car is trashed. I have to pay for towing and storage and arrange disposal. so not only do I lose the car, I lose more money dealing with losing the car. GREAT.

any advice? can I just abandon the car? is this how the city gets money?

madlee wrote:called the police and they told me to come get it way the fuck up in north philadelphia. I have to pay towing and storage fees.

Will insurance cover some of that, or is that all out of your pocket? (you might read up on your policy and/or call your insurance peoples and ask...?)

Here's hoping that the car is still in good shape...

(OOPS - doubler)

I am glad they found your car! Fingers crossed for it being a whole car...

thanks burun! I think you saved the day!

was able to retrieve the car today. for the most part it is okay.

here's the story:

friday, I get home from work. there's a message on the machine that informs me that they found the car and I need to call 215-685-9500. I call and they are closed. the next day, I call again and I get a human and they tell me that I have to go to 4000 n. american street. that's all they say. i ask if the car is in drivable condition. the person responds that they don't know and that they are too busy to find out and hangs up on me.

so, I try the philadelphia police website. it's down. the city website is also routinely down. what a city! anyway, using google cache I discover that there is some special release form I need to get my car back. I call the local district to get some information on what I need to do. They try to be helpful, but they don't really know anything. after about an hour of calling around, I realize that I just have to go all the way up to deep north philadelphia and see what happens. I take the bus which is about an hour each way. I guess it's good for the soul to see the poorer parts of the city. shit, I thought my neighborhood looked bad. it looks really bad up there. philadelphia is truly a mostly ugly city. there is trash everywhere.

so I get off the bus and I have to walk about a couple blocks to this address. I have to go under a creepy bridge. halfway thru, a teenager is walking towards me. I'm a little nervous and the kid must've noticed because he lifts up his shirt and shows me his stomach/waist as he walks by. it was kind of weird, but I guess he was letting me know he wasn't carrying??

so I make it to the place, which has a huge empty parking lot. there are no cars, except for city vehicles. wtf? There's a cop walking around out front, just killing time on the job. he tells me where to go. I ask him if the cars are kept here. he says no. are they near by? he says he has no idea.

so i go in and there is one other person already at the window being helped. he takes about 10 minutes and the woman then takes my information and closes the window. 30 minutes later she returns with the other guys info and closes the window again. 30 more minutes go by. she then barks at me to come to the window. she hands me my license, etc. and two sheets of paper. one is the tow sheet the other is a badly xeroxed copy of directions to where my car is being stored. at the top it lists the hours of operation. 9-2pm on saturday. I look at my phone, it's 2:09PM. nice.

so, it took this woman 30 minutes to xerox two pieces of paper. the towing report and the directions.

so I take the bus home and call it a day.

when I get home I take a closer look at the towing report. I see a section titled "other driver" with a name redacted and a non redacted address. there's also a section that is titled "location of car" that has 63rd and paschall ave. so I assume that the redacted name/ non redacted address is the guy who stole the car. they must've caught the asshole.

this morning, i take a taxi to the tow yard. they're pretty much not too helpful. I'm sure you can imagine the scene. it reminds of what a bluefish party boat cabin looks like. it's run down and the people are obese and kind of mean looking. they over charge me a day's fee on the storage. I complain, but they don't budge and I realize that pushing it will just make my life harder. fine take the extra 12 bucks. about 30 minutes later, the paper work is done and they show me to my car. as I turn the corner, I see it. looks okay at first glance, but then I see no driver side window. fuck is it smashed? a little closer and no, it's rolled down. wtf? can't they roll up the window? it rained last night. the other window is also rolled all the way down. i get up to the door and look in. there's trash everywhere, most notably a styrofoam container with french fries. they are strewn all over the interior. the ignition has been punched, but other than that, the interior looks fine. there's terry cloth towels and an asian silk purse with a bunch of coins in it. there's also a stolen car stereo complete with faceplate and remote. there's also a fancy scientific calculator. there's a different plastic gas can than the one I had in there. weird.

there was also a set of passport photos of a small child. it was kind of hard to identify the race. definitely south asian... I also found a bunch of what looked like brass wool and a small blue dime bag with some remnant white powder in there. perhaps that's why the antenna was broken?

I start cleaning the trash and I realize that the asshole had sideswiped someone as there are a bunch dents and paint scrapes on the passenger side.

AAA finally shows up and tows me to my mechanic. on the way, the tow truck operator tells me how he loves asian women and how he told his wife that if she dies, he's going to take the insurance money and get himself some asian girls. he said he calls them "ching wings." I guess he thought I was mexican. anyway, he told me he was voting for obama.

so in the end, I think I'll end up losing about $500 and wasted some time dealing with this bullshit.

madlee wrote:there was also a set of passport photos of a small child. it was kind of hard to identify the race. definitely south asian... I also found a bunch of what looked like brass wool and a small blue dime bag with some remnant white powder in there. perhaps that's why the antenna was broken?

Brass wool is what one would use to keep bits of molten crack from being inhaled when one is hitting the pipe that was made out of your antenna.

I'd say this guy was not a professional car thief. Why he picked your car will be a mystery for the ages.

because crackheads are fucking dumb assholes...my own town is littered with them...

it doesn't matter what they do just as long as they're doing something...

at least you got your car back and it wasn't nowhere near as bad as what you were thinking it would be...

congrats on getting it back btw...

well, I guess I was right, the cops did catch the guy. Yesterday, when I got home, I found a piece of mail from the city. it was a subpoena for what looks like a preliminary hearing. This whole experience has been kind of weird, having to deal with the rigamarole of getting my car back and now the legal aspect. However, this has been not a big deal at all, especially in comparison to the hassles involved with being hit by a private bus while waiting at a stop light in the middle of manhattan. The car insurance/crash industry is right up there with pharma, tobacco, military contractors, oil etc. in lack of ethics. add to that sham/charlatan doctors who line up to be experts for the insurance companies.

it's kind of creepy as this guy can probably figure out where I live, and who knows what crazed asian gang he's a member of. sounds like he's being charged with a felony.

on saturday, I got a letter in the mail from the philadelphia parking authority.

I was a bill for a delinquent parking ticket that occurred while my car was stolen. the parking authority is supposed to check the license of each car to see if it has any hits in the police database. I wonder how much time of my life will be chewed up from this new wrinkle.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to pay it and get reimbursed or if I have to actually go to fucking traffic court.