Welcome Back & Farewell, Honda

_{If you are a regular reader of the My Monday Memo, you may recall that Rachel announced the theft of her car in issue 230. Her trusty 2012 Honda Civic with only 115,000 miles on the odometer had been taken from her apartment building garage. She had planned to drive this car forever. She had no need for anything new and no interest in learning the new car technology. However, the universe would have other plans.}

_{After four weeks missing, Rachel lost hope and leased a new vehicle. Hello technology and goodbye monthly spending money. Four weeks later, having been gone for a total of eight weeks, Rachel received a call from SouthSound 911 dispatch to notify her of the discovery of her Honda. Only a few miles from her home in Tacoma, her car had been recovered. Initial reports said there were six people involved, no arrests, and the mention that there was “a lot of stuff” in the car. This would be very accurate.}

_{Pictured Above: On the initial look at the car, the front showed a bit of body damage. The damage was far more extensive than initially thought.}

_{How was the car recovered? A resident of the area called the Tacoma Police Department to report a suspicious vehicle. She has since requested the full report to find out if there was anything else interesting that took place, but has not received the report as of today.}

_{How did it all go down? The call had come in on a Saturday. Rachel was told to contact the tow company immediately, as charges for the tow and storage of her Honda would grow quickly. After speaking with the tow yard dispatch, she learned she would need to get to the tow yard first thing Monday morning to keep costs under $500. Ouch.}

_{Luckily, Rachel is almost always surrounded by great people and when she asked a friend for help, help was received. Her friend, Jennie, would drive her to the tow yard and give her a list of things to bring along to clean the car out. Thank goodness Jennie could function as Rachel’s brain, as Rachel couldn’t think straight.}

_{She had gotten quite the cleaning kit together with everything you might need to clean out car with “a lot of stuff” in it, not to mention disinfectants to do an initial scrub of the unknown germs (or drugs, or fluids), as she would certainly need a full detail if she was going to be successful in selling the car.}

_{Jennie and Rachel arrived at the tow yard before they opened in an effort to save on costs that would accrue the more time the car was on their lot. They quickly learned their efforts were in vain. The initial fee for the tow was over $300 and an additional $100 for being there for any part of that business day up to 12 hours. Again, ouch.}

_{When they were escorted to the car, Rachel immediately noted the damage on the front of the car. It appeared that maybe a curb had been jumped causing structural damage to the front end. While disappointing, it was far better than she expected things to look. That was until they opened the car doors.}

_{She isn’t sure what she expected and thought she had prepared for the worst-case scenario prior to the viewing, but seeing the inside of her car, she felt disgusted and violated. Someone had taken something that she worked hard for, kept in good shape for more than a decade, and completely destroyed it.}

_{What comprises “a lot of stuff?” This little Honda was full of stolen items, trash, drug paraphernalia, including a good deal of tin foil (can’t imagine what was in there), lots of spoons with burn marks, half eaten food, half full milk cartons, mold, burn marks on the seats, and oh, did we mention the bottle of urine that rolled out of the car when the back door was opened? Yep, at least they had the decency not urinate in the car. There was even cat food in the car.}

_{The smell was another thing… when the tow yard employee jumped the car to learn if the engine would run, it sounded terrible and smelled even worse. The inside of the car had an odor that didn’t make sense. Probably because Rachel has never done drugs. She was sure to hold her breath while leaning in to take pictures and look at the damage, but the smell was hard to miss. A shower would be required after this event.}

_{There were multiple sets of jumper cables and a tow strap that had been cut off on the bottom of the car (It had seemingly been towed to a gas station to fill up since the car wouldn’t drive). If that doesn’t make sense, they needed gas to keep the car on to provide heat even though it wasn’t drivable. Not drivable for likely a variety of reasons. Each and very hazard light on the dash was lit up. There would be no selling this car. It was clear that aside from the destruction inside the vehicle, there was structural damage and mechanical damage.}

_{When they found the exhaust pipe in the trunk, it became apparent that front end damage was not only front-end damage, but full undercarriage damage. The thieves must have been jumping ramps or something. One other thing, they had applied a blackout film to the back and rear windows so that nobody could see them doing their meth.}

_{After a few tears welled up in her eyes when the tow yard employee asked her what she wanted to do, she exclaimed, “I don’t want to touch a thing, I don’t want anything to do with this, I want this car gone! What are my options?” With a stroke of luck (maybe the tears helped), they only charged her the initial tow fee to sign over the title. The tow yard would transport the Honda to the scrap yard to be destroyed. Rachel’s trusty Honda would be nothing but a crushed piece of metal.}

_{What did she get out of this from her insurance company? Zero, zip, zilch. Just months prior to the theft, she had dropped her full coverage to liability only to save on the premium. Huge mistake. Thousands lost. She basically paid around $350 to get rid of the car. Thanks, thief.}

_{To leave you with a positive taste for the experience… Meet Thelma and Louise, pictured below. These are two cats that live at the tow yard that were very friendly. Thelma is pictured on top of Jennie’s car. She welcomed them upon their arrival and didn’t leave their side until they were in the tow yard. That was when Louise popped up to say hello. Only one day prior to the anniversary of her father’s passing, Rachel couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, Thelma and Louise were a sign from the universe that her dad was with her in spirit as every single expletive she knew went through her mind on this morning.}

_{A huge thank you to Jennie for her help getting through this day. Without her help and support that day, things could have gone very differently.}

^{“Stay positive! The only difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude.” – Unknown}