An update
Semi-important: I thought my car was stolen, but no, it was just towed.
When I noticed my car had disappeared last Thursday Adrian called the police, and a nice young officer showed up at the door. He got my car's make/model and VIN number, ran everything, and then said that he couldn't get any hits, so my car was probably in Mexico. He also told me it was registered to my father, which is odd, because we had the car's title transferred to me when I moved to California, over two years ago now. He also didn't find my California license plate number, only the Texas one, so I asked if I could have a number I could call once I got my license plate number.
Yesterday I called the California DMV and got my plate numbers, then called HPD. HPD said my car was recovered, which was very surprising to me and very welcome news. They said to call this towing lot, which I did. The lady on the other end very clearly expressed that no car matching my car's description was on her lot. Call HPD again. They say, "Well, it's definitely there." I call the towing lot again. They say, "Well, it's definitely not." So I start asking other questions, such as does she know of such-and-such towing company, does she know their number, etc. She eventually gives me the number of the lot across the street or something and it's there (hooray).
I call the lot and they said that all I need to pick it up is registration or insurance. Okay, my registration (California registration) is a bit overdue... but my insurance is current, I'm pretty sure of that. I call up Geico to reactivate my insurance since I cancelled it when my car was missing, and mentioned that I moved states. Big mistake. So they had to get rid of my old insurance and start me a new policy from scratch (with all associated charges, of course) and all I wanted was to uncancel my insurance. Well, finally all that's done and I try to print out a copy of the insurance, but of course my printer's refusing to cooperate. It prints out the cover page for my insurance documents (the page that says, "From Geico") and doesn't print out the second page, which actually has information on it.
I'm not a happy camper at this point anymore, and I remember that I made sure that everything was current when Adrian and I moved me back to Houston, so my expired registration and insurance should still be in the car. Call up the lot - ask them if I can get inside my car for that stuff in order to show proof - he okays it - and it's now about 6:45. Another 45 mins before raid time (which is another thing I'll get to later) and well, my car's already been there for a week. Another few hours won't matter in the slightest.
But Adrian has proven himself to be more sensible (and he's probably right that I want to pick up my car sooner rather than later) and so off we go.
Get to the lot. It's
freezing cold outside. We talk to the towing lot guy and then go to find documents from my car... which of course aren't there. I have really old insurance (which honestly I could've passed off as current if I'd just kept my mouth shut) and expired registration... and it's still really fucking cold. The area you stand in to talk to the towing lot guy in his warm, insulated office is essentially a wind tunnel. We ask if we can get my insurance to fax him a copy of my insurance card, and he says okay and so I call up Geico.
Well... apparently my zip code doesn't match my account, which is pretty commonplace for me. I mean, in the last 4 years I've had what... there's Richmont, Bellerive, then briefly with bossman in Santa Monica, then Redondo Beach, then Van Nuys, and then West Los Angeles and then this apartment... so six different zip codes? I rattle them off to the lady on the phone and after verifying my identity she repeats to me my street address and I realize that the Geico guy on the phone earlier had put in
Harvard street instead of
Hazard street, and then just got my zip code off of that.
Which (unfortunately) means I have to re-answer
all of the insurance questions again, standing in the freezing cold, impatient, just wanting my car so I can go home and raid.
And Adrian and I end up getting home 15 minutes too late for raiding.
So yeah, I got my car back, but yesterday
sucked.
Oh and it's ultimately my fault too, which makes it suckier (naturally, I don't like when things are my fault). I guess I must've been blocking a driveway or something, which is why my car got towed. Of course, it had been towed for two days and the cop said it was stolen, which resulted in this whole last week of worry and inconvenience but it wasn't his fault - he doesn't know any more than what the computer says, just like the HPD lady didn't mean to give me the number to the wrong lot and the Geico insurance agents weren't trying to be jerks and the absence of any figure in particular to focus anger at (aside from myself, naturally) makes this situation even
more aggravating, since there's the impound fee, the money for insurance, and a ticket to take care of.
Anyway this entry turned out a lot longer than I thought it would... I had originally meant to just write a blurp about "Hey got my car back kthxbai" so now I'm going to get off eljay and eat or something.
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