Full circle, or: So you thought no one wanted my car?

Well, it's finally happened - crime has struck our idyllic village of Cape Town, ZA - my beautiful, angelic car was stolen last night. I was out in Observatory (a neighborhood - quite sketchy, apparently - near UCT) having dinner with some people from the department, and welcoming our new postdoc. Actually, it was an extremely enjoyable and engaging dinner, filled with discussions of why religion should be stamped out vs. why religion is an ok thing. I wonder who brought that up...

Anyway, after dinner, we all piled out of the restaurant laughing and joking in a jovial mood, I went to open the door to my car, and low and behold, it's just empty air. No car to be seen anywhere. Shit. So we called the police, they came and took down my car details, and told me I had to take my vehicle registration papers to the cop shop (actually, they seemed shocked and annoyed that I didn't have them on me), but they said I could do it the next day. And man, I just wanted to get home and crash. Annoyed. So I get a ride back to Jeff and Amanda's place (since I'm still puppysitting) and come to the realization that I had left the keys to their house in the car. Double shit. Luckily Amanda's mom, Sheina (who was supposed to leave that day for England) was home, and she let me in and gave me a spare set of keys. Ugh. So I got in, was slobbered on by the puppy, and had a few whiskey's with Sheina before heading to bed.

Actually, at the time, I was really more amused and gratified than depressed. For those dedicated CTP followers, you'll know what a pain in my ass this car has been, and this is an opportunity to get the insurance (yes, it is insured) and start over with a new(er) car. But I woke up this morning feeling pretty shitty about the whole thing, which I guess is understandable.

The funny thing was when the cops came to take down my details. They were writing down stuff, and this car dude comes running over and tells them that the dudes who stole my car just mugged some lady down the street and was running away. He was yelling at them that they must go off and chase these dudes. The cops were just like, "yeah yeah, we need to take this guys info first," and waved him away. Five minutes later, they finished writing "white 1993 Citigolf" and slllllooooooooowwwwlllllly drove away to chase after these guys. Of course, before they left, they were threatening to throw the car dude in jail because he hadn't protected my car properly. Funnily enough, they didn't catch the dudes.