An Open Letter To The A**hole Who Stole My Car Last Night

Hey, you. It’s me.

Soooo, how are you liking my 2014 Toyota Sienna XLE minivan?

What’s it been, about 24 hours since you took it, right? It’s a smooth ride, don’t you think?

I hope you’ve been enjoying it, and that it’s been worth it to you to steal my car.

Please, catch me up on what you’ve been doing with it since you drove off last night. Seriously, I’d love to know.

I know you took it while I was in the restaurant between 6:15 and 8:15, but that’s really about it.

And rather than wait for your response — which I know will never come — why don’t I fill you in on how I’ve been doing, because I really think you should know.

When I first walked up to the spot where I’d left my car (C’mon, you remember, don’t you? It was parallel parked @ the corner of Lake and Ada Streets in Chicago’s West Loop.), my first reaction was to feel embarrassed and confused.

I turned to my sweetheart and said, “Wait. Wasn’t this where I parked?”

Silly me, I thought. It’s gotta be in the next block.

We kept walking and I gripped his hand a little tighter as I craned my neck, scanning for MY car. It’s never been a hard car to find, you know – that big, old, white minivan that I’ve taken good care of, the one in which I’ve driven my kids and my friends and my dogs, the one in which I left so many personal possessions, including many that are irreplaceable. You know exactly the things I’m talking about, because you surely saw them as you rifled through MY car when you drove it away.

After you did it, you probably never stopped to think about what my reaction might be. Here it is:

My first thought was to blame myself for parking in a tow away zone. I hadn’t, of course, but I still convinced myself that I’d missed or misread a posted sign.

For the next two hours, we walked around the neighborhood as I made calls in search of my car.

The first was to 911 at 8:19pm. The call lasted 6 minutes. I explained this wasn’t an emergency, and that I suspected my car may have been towed or stolen. I was transferred to the non-emergency…