First Time for Everything

Well, it finally happened.

One of my co-workers got her car stolen while at work.

There's a church next door to our store and we mostly park in their parking lot during work.  We've never had a problem with anyone messing with our cars. Until now.

I was working the other day with my co-worker Sarah. She's a young college student working at our store part-time while going to school full-time.

She worked with me until noon on our last shift together. After we did shift change, she left for the day. Shortly after, she came back in with a funny look on her face.

"What's wrong?" I asked. I figured a customer had pissed her off or something.

"My car's gone," she said quietly.

"What? Your car is gone?" I said while peering out into the parking lot to look for her car.

"I parked it next to your car this morning when I came into work. It's not there now," she said, slowly starting to panic. "I already called the police. Is it okay if I wait here for them to arrive?"

"Yeah," I said while heading outside. I guess I had to see for myself that her car was gone. I walked to the parking lot and stood next to my car. Yep, sure enough, big empty parking spot next to my car.

So naturally I came inside to look it up on camera to see if I could find anything.

After much searching, the person who stole her car was a customer that I had rung up. I had never seen him before, but I did mention after he left our store that he looked kind of shady. I must have sensed that he was up to no good. He bought a lighter but kept talking to himself while I was ringing him up. While that's the normal around here, I still found him to be strange.

After he left our store, he walked right next door to the parking lot and got right into her car like it was his. No hesitation, nothing. Which caused me to ask Sarah if she had locked her car doors. And of course she hadn't. But he somehow hotwired the car to get it to start and then drove away with it.

All of this had happened at 8:30am. She didn't notice her car was gone until after her shift at 12 noon. I figured he was on his way to Mexico by now with her car.

Much much later, the police finally showed up. First thing he asked Sarah was if she was caught up on payments for her car. (Thinking it had been repo'd I guess.)

I ended up going home that day a few hours later, but I called up to the store to see if they had found her car.

Apparently this guy stole her car and drove it across the street to a strip of stores. He parked it behind the building and ended up stealing her car stereo and all the clothes she had in her car. Other than that, no other damage was done.

Still, this asshole had taken her car from a church parking lot. Is nothing sacred any more???

I wish there was a device that would automatically pepper spray someone once they started messing with wires or something inside of a car. But then a lot of mechanics would run around with burning eyes.

I always lock my car doors. I don't trust anyone. But now I'm extra sure I keep my car parked in a spot that is visible to me at all times. Fuck these assholes with no jobs that go around stealing other people's stuff.