There's nothing quite like the sinking feeling when your car is stolen. But you CAN'T steal a BMW. It's nigh on technically impossible.
BUT..... here's the story to defy all odds. The heading should really have been "IT'S MURPHY'S LAW".
Yesterday afternoon after visiting the possible Assisted Living Unit that mum might be moving into, we came home and I was pretty tired, so I invited mum to lay down beside me on my double bed to chat about how she felt about this "out of the blue" care option. I said to mum I'll take the car for a wash (it had been sitting in the driveway for 3 weeks whilst I was in Singapore), and I'll fill it with fuel." She convinced me to do it after I pick up Mya from school because I was so tired.
We went and did some shopping instead and I went upstairs to unload the shopping from the car, and mum followed slowly behind me negotiating the 16 steps from the driveway to her front door. I went back outside to pick up Mya from school and the driveway was empty.
Oh what a sinking feeling. I just stopped in my tracks, not being able to beleive someone could have:
A) stolen a BMW and
B) been watching us so carefully that they took the car in a virtual blink of an eye.
I ran back inside and confirmed with mum that I wasn't going crazy, that the car was stolen. I was so convinced it couldn't have been that I thought through the only possible scenario.....
That perhaps I'd left it unlock (most unlikely for me to do ) and that someone had opened the door rolled it down the hill and put it on a tray truck. This came to mind becuase one night, years ago, someone had actually opened dad's car, rolled it down the hill, but didn't have a truck. he was so drunk he left his wallet in the car and the police enjoyed returning it to him and arresting him for the theft. But in this case, there was no car to be seen down the hill.
Luckily the car was not full of our things as it had been the day before. It only had Mya's booster seat, her tennis racket and Mum's glasses. Mum's glasses would have been the hardest to replace, as she would have had to go and get her eyes retested and wait for new glasses - something she doesn't need right now.
I retuned inside and called Mya's school Principal to put her into Emergency After Care until I had called the police and got to school to pick her up later.
I then realsied to my horror, that because the car was a "loan car" from BMW, and I'd been away from Melbourne for 3 weeks and in that time had had two different cars with different registrations in Singapore, I in fact didn't have a clue what the registration number of the car was. So what was I going to do, call the police and say "I've just had my car stolen and all I can tell you is that it is a Blue - if I rememebr correctly - and its' a BMW. They might have sent the Alzheimer's unit instead of Police Investigators.
So I rang Pam who had loaned me the car to find out the registration number so I could call the police.... Pam was in a meeting with all the staff from that department. I explained to the operator how urgent it was to get the details so I can call the police. the operator had the presence of mind to get my details and go to the meeting and ask Pam to call me.
In the short time it took for Pam to call back, I went through a hundred scenarios of what could have happened.. and nothing really worked!
Pam rang back and says. 'MIRANDA THE CAR IS NOT STOLEN, WE SOLD IT AND CAME TO COLLECT IT. WE THOUGHT YOU WERE STILL IN SINGAPORE AND JUST TOOK IT AS WE'D AGREED BEFORE YOU LEFT."
Mum and I just hugged eachother. We'd been to hell and back. Murphy's law was that I'd rung Pam earlier in the day to let her know we were back and she wasn't there, so I had left a message on her answering machine, but because she was in a meeting she hadn't heard it to know I was in Melbourne.
Arghhhhhhhhhhhh.
Can you imagine if I had known the registration number and got through to the Police, Lorrainne or Belinda who drove the car away to take back to headquarters, might have been arrested for robbery!
Oh MY!!!!! How embarrased would I have been.... almost as embarrased as giving back a dirty car with an empty fuel tank. But as someone rightly pointed out - I didn't give it back, they 'stole' back their own car!!!
Today the ladies brought me a new car, we laughed and laughed. We can laugh now, but not yesterday. . . Oh well, my hair is a lot greyer today, and in the end apart from a good dose of adrenalin shooting through Mum's and my system, no harm was done.
Everyone at school had heard the earlier part of the story that the car was stolen, and today they were all curious to know what had happened. I told them the car was stolen, but the "theives" replaced it with a cleaner, bigger and lighter coloured one - complete with, car booster seat, tennis racket, Mum's glasses and a full tank of fuel. Weren't they considerate... Heee heee heee
BUT..... here's the story to defy all odds. The heading should really have been "IT'S MURPHY'S LAW".
Yesterday afternoon after visiting the possible Assisted Living Unit that mum might be moving into, we came home and I was pretty tired, so I invited mum to lay down beside me on my double bed to chat about how she felt about this "out of the blue" care option. I said to mum I'll take the car for a wash (it had been sitting in the driveway for 3 weeks whilst I was in Singapore), and I'll fill it with fuel." She convinced me to do it after I pick up Mya from school because I was so tired.
We went and did some shopping instead and I went upstairs to unload the shopping from the car, and mum followed slowly behind me negotiating the 16 steps from the driveway to her front door. I went back outside to pick up Mya from school and the driveway was empty.
Oh what a sinking feeling. I just stopped in my tracks, not being able to beleive someone could have:
A) stolen a BMW and
B) been watching us so carefully that they took the car in a virtual blink of an eye.
I ran back inside and confirmed with mum that I wasn't going crazy, that the car was stolen. I was so convinced it couldn't have been that I thought through the only possible scenario.....
That perhaps I'd left it unlock (most unlikely for me to do ) and that someone had opened the door rolled it down the hill and put it on a tray truck. This came to mind becuase one night, years ago, someone had actually opened dad's car, rolled it down the hill, but didn't have a truck. he was so drunk he left his wallet in the car and the police enjoyed returning it to him and arresting him for the theft. But in this case, there was no car to be seen down the hill.
Luckily the car was not full of our things as it had been the day before. It only had Mya's booster seat, her tennis racket and Mum's glasses. Mum's glasses would have been the hardest to replace, as she would have had to go and get her eyes retested and wait for new glasses - something she doesn't need right now.
I retuned inside and called Mya's school Principal to put her into Emergency After Care until I had called the police and got to school to pick her up later.
I then realsied to my horror, that because the car was a "loan car" from BMW, and I'd been away from Melbourne for 3 weeks and in that time had had two different cars with different registrations in Singapore, I in fact didn't have a clue what the registration number of the car was. So what was I going to do, call the police and say "I've just had my car stolen and all I can tell you is that it is a Blue - if I rememebr correctly - and its' a BMW. They might have sent the Alzheimer's unit instead of Police Investigators.
So I rang Pam who had loaned me the car to find out the registration number so I could call the police.... Pam was in a meeting with all the staff from that department. I explained to the operator how urgent it was to get the details so I can call the police. the operator had the presence of mind to get my details and go to the meeting and ask Pam to call me.
In the short time it took for Pam to call back, I went through a hundred scenarios of what could have happened.. and nothing really worked!
Pam rang back and says. 'MIRANDA THE CAR IS NOT STOLEN, WE SOLD IT AND CAME TO COLLECT IT. WE THOUGHT YOU WERE STILL IN SINGAPORE AND JUST TOOK IT AS WE'D AGREED BEFORE YOU LEFT."
Mum and I just hugged eachother. We'd been to hell and back. Murphy's law was that I'd rung Pam earlier in the day to let her know we were back and she wasn't there, so I had left a message on her answering machine, but because she was in a meeting she hadn't heard it to know I was in Melbourne.
Arghhhhhhhhhhhh.
Can you imagine if I had known the registration number and got through to the Police, Lorrainne or Belinda who drove the car away to take back to headquarters, might have been arrested for robbery!
Oh MY!!!!! How embarrased would I have been.... almost as embarrased as giving back a dirty car with an empty fuel tank. But as someone rightly pointed out - I didn't give it back, they 'stole' back their own car!!!
Today the ladies brought me a new car, we laughed and laughed. We can laugh now, but not yesterday. . . Oh well, my hair is a lot greyer today, and in the end apart from a good dose of adrenalin shooting through Mum's and my system, no harm was done.
Everyone at school had heard the earlier part of the story that the car was stolen, and today they were all curious to know what had happened. I told them the car was stolen, but the "theives" replaced it with a cleaner, bigger and lighter coloured one - complete with, car booster seat, tennis racket, Mum's glasses and a full tank of fuel. Weren't they considerate... Heee heee heee
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