Slice of Life - Grand Theft

Slice of Life is a weekly prompt to encourage writers to tell personal history stories. Click on the link to participate.

I wish I had a picture of Jaime's van. It was an old Voyager with faded blue paint but the air conditioning worked and it held all of Jaime's family and friends. Her father had helped her get it when the previous car died. She moved her CD/MP3 player into it from her old car and down the road it would go with the music playing, the baby seat in the back, full of groceries, kids and beach or camping gear. Everyone loved that old van. So you can imagine how she felt when she got up one morning and it was missing from the space right in front of her door. It was so ugly, she thought it was theft-proof.

Of course, the police came and took a report but there was no word. They found a stolen van with a baby seat in it but, unbelievably, it was a different van. (Come on, people! Who would steal an old van with a baby seat -- much less two?) Anyway, she didn't have replacement insurance so she made do with a borrowed car which was much smaller.

It was a year later when they called her and said the van had been found abandoned in Orlando. At first she was excited, but then she found out that it wasn't drivable and it had $300.00 of accrued storage fees. We appealed to her Dad for help and considered having the car towed, but he said to let it go. We didn't know what kind of shape it was in. It was like being robbed twice!