Car Troubles (Part Three)

Ryan walked back into the apartment with “the look” on his face.

It was the same “look” he gave when the grey Corolla mysteriously disappeared from our apartment’s parking lot in Tucson.

It was the same “look” he gave when our cadillac converter gave up the ghost.

It was the look that that said that something was horribly wrong with our car and it was going to cost us lots and lots of money.

You know the look.

I followed Ryan to the parking lot to inspect the damage.

A rain-gutter block had been smashed through the back window of our car. A trail of thick tacky blood led through that window, all over our backseat, up over to the front seat, and all over the driver’ door. However, nothing was missing from the car.

Who would do such a horrible thing?

The police kept asking Ryan if there were any women scorned in his life. Well, no. That wasn’t it.

So, Ryan and I added up all the people who might have a bone to pick with either of us. The grand sum amounted to zero. We were fairly likable people.

So why? It was a mystery; one that must be solved.

The police left and Ryan set about sweeping the chards of glass from our car. It was then that he discovered a cell phone. The architect behind this fiasco had dropped his cell phone in our car.

Thus we located the perpetrator (we’ll call him Einstein) and coerced him out of three hundred dollars to replace the window and get our car professionally cleaned. More valuable then the money, however, was the explanation he gave us.

Apparently, Einstein and his buddies had gotten sloshed (and heaven knows what else) the previous evening. He went out to his car to drive home and the key wouldn’t fit in the door. It was then that he decided to smash in the window and crawl through, cutting himself badly on the way in.

The problem was that it wasn’t his car. His car was a Honda Civic (two door) and ours was a four door black Corolla. It didn’t register that it wasn’t his car as he bled over my son’s car seat. It didn’t register that it wasn’t his car as he crawled up to the front seat (his car didn’t even have a backseat). It finally registered that it wasn’t his car when the key would not fit in the ignition. So he opened the front door and got out.

Don’t do drugs.

When Einstein stopped by our apartment to deliver the cash he also invited us to go to his church with him the following week. While tempted...