Holy mother of piss, I’m mad! Some piece of shit with an abortion coathanger in his brain is fucking with my car while it’s sitting in my driveway and it’s costing me an arm and a leg! And you don’t fuck with somebody’s car. It’s just not done. It’s the lowest of the low. I’m a goddamned American. We fight wars over our cars. If I catch the sonovabitch, I’m going feed him his balls lightly-sauteed in a generously spiced habenaro pepper coulis and then rub the leftovers into his tattered scrotum. Or maybe I’ll just call the cops. I haven’t decided yet. But listen, Dopers, to this tale of automotive woe, and you will be inspired to think up exciting new tourtures for the misbegotten butt-baby that’s been MESSING WITH MY GODDAMNED CAR!
It’s not a fancy car. It’s a Civic. Sporty red, sure, but bought mostly because of its fuel efficency–a fact that will be important to the story soon. I park it in my driveway, located behind my home in a pretty nice Memphis neighborhood. About a year and a half ago, somebody busted out the window in my car. I was mad, but the insurance covered it since I hadn’t had a claim in a blue moon. I put up a new motion sensor light covering the area and that was that. About a year later, the new light went out. Soon after, in October, another car window was broken and somebody went through the glove compartment. Talking to the neighbors, we discovered that three other cars had been broken into the same night, but nothing major was stolen. Once again, the insurance covered the breakage and I installed a second new light, this one solar-powered, because I thought it was neat. It was neat, and it worked great until it was stolen. The cops had never heard anything like that. “Was this a landscaping light?” “No, it was a full-fledged solar powered security light , it cost like $80, and somebody stole it in broad daylight.” I plan to replace it with something cheaper and less neat, but the holidays are upon us and the weather is bad and I just don’t get around to it.
Two days ago, we woke up and discovered that once again, somebody has broken a window in the car. I’m pissed, but mostly at myself for not installing a new light. There’s an auto glass place right down the street, and they know me now. I’m off work this week, so I have the time to deal with it. Yesterday, the S.O. and I venture out of our walled compound (note: driveway not walled, but it will be soon) to get a new light for the driveway. The gas is low–presumably because we just drove back across the state after visiting my folks for Christmas–so I fill up the tank at the corner gas station and we drive to the Home Despot. When we emerge a few minutes later, there is a huge puddle of gas around my car. The gas tank is leaking. It soon becomes apparent that some product of an unholy union has punched a hole in my gas tank with a screwdriver. We wait for the tow truck, shooing off smokers, and take the car in to my mechanic. He confirms that the tank was deliberately punctured and says the tank must be replaced to the tune of $500. Plus, they’re closing for New Year and the car won’t be ready until Tuesday.
So today I’m playing phone tag with my insurance agent to see if they’re going to cover this or if I should pay for it out of pocket so the insurance company doesn’t cancel my policy. That’s enough to make me homicidal right there–insurance weasels are very high on my list of unpleasant people–but there’s more. I think this series of events is not random. I think the ethically challenged piece of genetic filth has been stealing my gas.
Like I said, I bought the Civic for the fuel efficency. I obsessively calculate my gas mileage after every fillup. I average 40 mpg on the highway and 33-36 in the city, depending on driving conditions and the season. But in November, after the first break-in and when the light theft happened, my mpg dropped dramatically. I averaged around 24 mpg. Due to construction, I had to change routes to work, but I had never gotten less than 32 MPG even under the worst stop-and-go conditions. It was a mystery, but the milage went back up in December, so I didn’t dwell on it. But then the hole in the gas tank was discovered, and a couple of the people who saw it remarked that it looked like there had been a piece of tape over it that had been removed. I also noticed that there were no gas stains in the driveway, but there are gas stains on the street where I pulled out of the driveway and presumably the gas in the tank sloshed out. The hole is on the side of the tank, where it is easily accessable from the rear, but high enough up on the tank so that not all of the gas will drain out. If some punkass vandal kid had just pierced the tank and ran, gas would have spilled out all over the driveway, leaving the same kind of stain that is visible on the street. But if someone had a bucket or one of those plastic cans designed to catch oil for do-it-yourself oil chage people, there would be no stains on the driveway. Forthermore, if you really want the gas to shoot out of the hole, as I discovered to my chagrin, you have to open the gas cap. Otherwise, the gas will just trickle out, especially if there’s not much left in the tank, as was presumably the case on Wednesday night, when the window breakage happened.
So here’s the scenario: Back in October, somebody punched a hole in my gas tank and broke the window so he could open the gas cap and drain as much fuel out as possible. Then he plugs the hole with tape and returns periodically to get some more gas whenever he needs it. In the meantime, I install a new security light. Asshole thief guy steals the light so he can have a dark place to steal my gas unobserved. Wednesday night, he comes back to the well. But the flow of gas from my tank is anemic because there’s not much gas in there, so he breaks the window again to open the gas cap and hopefully increase the flow. Maybe this is not successful, or maybe he is startled, because he forgets to replace the tape and two days later, upon filling the tank, I discover the hole. Is this remotely plausable, or am I just being paranoid?
Well, either way, my paranoia is well-founded, because somewhere out there some dog fucker is roaming the city with the knowledge that he fucked up my car and got away with it. If I find him, I will personally rip open his chest cavity and take a big steaming shit on his still-beating heart while insulting his mother and grandmother. Or call the cops.