The Time my car got stolen!

This past February, my car (actually my wife's) was stolen from right in front of my house! Now this could have been prevented because I left the car running to warm it up before my wife left with our daughter.

Here is what happened.
We had a Buick Rendezvous. Yes Lonnie Bruner, we have an "American" car (but my other car IS a Nissan.

Usually in the winter on exceptionally cold days, I would go out and start the car to warm it up. My wife is a teacher and my daughter goes to the same Montessori school my wife teaches at so I would load up the car with my wife's bag, lunches, etc.

So I start the car and go inside. I am standing in the foyer putting my daughters shoes and jacket on. The front door is closed but not all the way. Maybe open just an inch or so. It takes me literally 3 minutes to put the shoes and jacket on my daughter. I open the door to put her in her booster seat and BLAMMO. the car is GONE!

My stomach sunk. I ran around the corner and saw nothing. I couldn't believe it.

This happened at 8 AM. Plain as day. My neighbor was in his car leaving and I asked him if he saw anything. He said he saw the car leaving, but assumed it was us.

We live in a very quiet neighborhood. We got the feeling that someone had been casing the hood as this was pretty much routine for us. Someone had to be waiting in the wings in order to pull that off in such a small time window. NO MORE. To add insult to injury, my wife's laptop and purse were in the car.

Let me tell you that I do feel dumb about the whole thing and it WAS partially my fault for leaving the car running. But that doesn't give anyone the right to take the car. Thankfully insurance covered the whole thing but it was an ordeal.

The thing that pissed me off the most was how it affected my daughter. She was sad because "her" car was gone. Along with many of her belongings and toys.

I only thank god that she wasn't in the car at the time. (which I never do)

I did notice that my neighbor did start her car and left her 7 year old daughter in it while it was running. I told her not to do that anymore.

We had to learn the hard way. The old adage "what is this world coming to" definitely applies here. I remember you could leave your bikes on the lawn, cars unlocked, windows left open, shed left unlocked and even the house doors were never locked. Not any more.

So beware.