The Case of the Disappeared Car

I came out of my house today not very willing. I was going to work for a few hours, then spending the rest of the day making a brochure for one of my classes that I've been dreading for a week now.

I start to walk toward my car, except I wasn't walking toward my car. Why? Because my car had disappeared. Maybe I'm crazy, I thought. So I walked up and down the street in front of my apartment, then walked all the way around the complex to see if I had drunkenly parked it as far as possible from my apartment. No.

My dad tells a story from his Snow College days how he and a friend once went out to the parking lot of the frat house of sorts they were living in and took off everyone's tires, laid them flat, then put the car resting on the top of the four tires. They even did it to their cars to hide who the perpetrator was. One guy, a little off his hinges, came totally unglued when he found his car pranked and was ready to pull a Liam or Denzel spree.


(A 203 favorite, just make sure it's edited.)

I, however, decided to go to the office. They said that no one was allowed to tow a vehicle off of their premises without their permission. (Apparently once upon a time a girl was going to be in the Miss UVSC pageant. Someone called in and had her car booted so she couldn't get to the pageant in the morning. It worked. Hence the policy.) Oh good, I thought, some Grand Theft Auto nut decided to blur fantasy and reality last night. Only he'd be an idiot GTA nut because my car is a 2002 Honda Civic, quite possibly the most boring car known to man.

Anyway, I decided to call the bane of BYU students' existence, namely, University Parking Enforcement. (I would love to see a website devoted wholly to these gimps. How many students have been hosed by them in some way in the last 10 years? 10,000? 25,000? 50,000?) I thought I spoke to them very civily all things considered. These are the same people who, when I came out of an apartment 7 minutes after curfew were booting my car. Despite the fact I got there right as they were putting the thing on, they insisted that once it was on they couldn't take it off without money. I'm sure you have your own stories you could tell, too.

Well, it turns out they have my car. According to them, some resident called them, posed as someone from the office, and had them take away my car. That sounds like it could have some promise when put in an episode of the Office (or at least sounds like one of my favorite episodes in Season 4 "The Chair Model." Sorry I can't get a link) but for some reason I just didn't find it amusing in the slightest. Now, where I was parked was in one of the entries to the lot, but with plenty of room for cars to get in and out; people have parked there plenty in the two years I've lived in my apartment. I don't imagine they knew which car was mine and that this was a personal attack. If it was, someone needs to get a life and come talk to me. If not that, they must've been driving a tank and were angry they couldn't get into the parking lot.



Or they'd had a bad day and needed to take it out on someone. If so, I hope they feel better themselves. I thank heaven for tender mercies and that it wasn't stolen. I was amazed at how calm I felt throughout the process of tracking it down...it turned out to be a good experience on trying patience and faith.