A little humor...
To start the week...
The Stolen Car
The proud owner of a magnificent 1956 Chevrolet convertible, wrote to say he had restored the car to perfection over the last few years, and sent this...
Last week on a very warm summer afternoon I decided to take my car to town. It needed gas, as the gauge was practically on empty, but I needed an ice cream, so I headed first to my favorite ice cream shop.
I had trouble finding a parking space and had to park it down a side street. I noticed a group of young guys standing around smoking cigarettes and eyeing my car rather covetously.
I was a bit uneasy leaving it there. But people often take interest in such an old and well-preserved car, so I went off to enjoy my ice cream.
The line at the ice cream shop was long, and it took me quite a while to return to my car. When I did, my worst fears were realized… My car was gone.
I called the police and reported the theft and then went back and bought a quart of pistachio ice cream. About ten minutes later the police called me to say they had found the car abandoned near a gas station a few miles out of town.
It was unharmed and I was relieved. It seems just before I called, they had received a call from a young woman who was an employee at a self-service gas station. She told them that three young men had driven in with this beautiful old convertible.
One of them came to the window and prepaid for 20 dollar’s worth of gas.
Then all three of them walked around the car several times. They opened the hood and for a long time they all looked around inside. Then they closed the hood and walked around the car in the other direction.
Then they all got in the car and drove off, without filling the tank. The police were at a loss to explain this unusual sequence of events.
The question is, why would anybody steal a car, pay for gas that they never pumped, and then abandon the car later and walk away?
Answer: They couldn’t find where to put the gas! You’d never guess in a million years where it was on this car.
It’s behind the left taillight. There was a little lever you had to turn and the taillight plunked down and there was the cap to the gas tank.
And that’s why they walked around the car and threw up their hands, got in and drove away; when they ran out of gas later, they left it there.
My old Ford Grenada got stolen. It was recovered by the city tow service after it was abandoned. It was a standard transmission and the punks had broken the clutch plate. (You can do that to a Ford by looking at it wrong.) So I got my abandoned broken car back and got it fixed. The punks had left a quart of transmission fluid on the back seat. I'm really glad they gave up before pouring it somewhere it didn't belong.
I worked at a gas station (I was about 16?) and I REMEMBER THIS MODEL!!
There was another model of a different car where it was behind the center 'name plate' on the back of the car (and it was a wide plate that flipped down. On that one the OWNER didn't even know where it was! Took us a couple minutes (this was back in the day of people rarely pumping their own gas).