Sunday, November 02, 2008

One begins to wonder what the point of a lock-up garage is.

Me: "Goddammit! The bastards broke into our car again.*"
Geekman (showing an astonishing lack of observation): "How can you tell?"

I point at the window right in front of him that has been smashed in, and then the little door that covers the petrol cap—except that technically I'm NOT pointing at the door that covers the petrol cap, since it is missing.

Geekman: "Oh, right."

We giggle. Because we are deranged.

Geekman: "It's funny. I'm not even mad this time. Just resigned."
Me: "Yeah, me too. It's like, that's just what happens to our car."

We resignedly inspect the car for further damage, and find that the lock to the boot also no longer functions. Nothing's been stolen. It would appear that the morons removed the petrol cap door without actually stealing the petrol (despite a full tank). They tried and failed to get into the car through the boot (obviously not registering that the front passenger door no longer even HAS a lock thanks to the last break in). And then they smashed a window, but didn't take anything.

They did, however, thoughtfully leave the lock from the petrol door thingy sitting on the back seat, just in case we need it for later.

I briefly consider starting a museum of all the loot car thieves have left us (current count: two pairs of scissors, a screwdriver, some paper towels, and a lock).

Me: "Do you think we should still take the car to the gym, even with the broken window?"
Geekman: "Why not? If someone steals it, at least we won't have to pay for repairs."
Me: "But you know how we were going to pick up the case of beer left in your department?**"
Geekman: "Yeah, let's do that after the gym, not before."

Because clearly it doesn't matter if someone steals our CAR, as long as we still have a case of beer. You see, then we can drink until the pain of being carless goes away, right? The logic is flawless.

I'm going to spend the afternoon making a sign to put in the car window that says, "Please don't break into this car (you bastards). There is nothing worth stealing inside, and we are not insured."

That'll work, right?

____________

* When searching to find this earlier post to link to, I googled StyleyGeek + broke into our car. Google helpfully suggested, "Did you mean: StyleyGeek broke into your car?" For the record, I would like to state that StyleyGeek has not broken into ANYONE'S car. Thank you.

** The case of beer was left over from a physics department LAN party on Friday night. I think this means we have now joined the inner geek circle. Geekman in particular seemed proud of his mastery of the 1337 lingo, as demonstrated by the glee on his face when, with a look of concentration, he looked up from his computer and tried out phrases like, "I fragged your dudes!" and "Pwned, noobs!"

5 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Some cities in the world just seem to collect the "interesting" would be thieves.
eg here and here...

Stellar_muddle

Inside the Philosophy Factory said...

I'd tape a small post-it note to each of the windows saying, "don't break the window, the door isn't locked"... at least then you wouldn't have to replace the windows all the time.

Of course, that would only work if the theives can (and choose to) read...

Anonymous said...

Just keep your windows rolled down all the time so they can't smash them.

Psych Post Doc said...

Sorry about the window. Glad you didn't have the beer in there. :)

StyleyGeek said...

Hmmm... ITPF and Canuck_Grad, I kind of like those ideas, but I worry that this would make thieves even more likely to target OUR car rather than any other one in the garage. (Not that they don't already *ahem*).

I would have hoped that the first thing a thief would do is check the doors to see whether you can just open one. But at least a door without a lock is not obvious from across the other side of the garage. A post-it note on the windows, or rolled down windows might draw attention...