Would You Believe it?

On Thursday night I caught two guys sitting in our car!! Would you believe it?

It was about 10.15pm and I just happened to be down in the garage feeding the cats when I heard a car horn - which sounded to be right out in the drive way where our cars are. At first I didn't think much of it and though it may have been the next door neighbor.. but after a few minutes I thought I better go and check.. so I went downstairs and there I found two guys in the car!

I must have got this huge rush of testosterone because my voice dropped into this deep rumble - Im sure I sounded like the exorcist, and I yelled at them to get out of the car. They didn't.. they well obscenities back at me.. and I could see the lights coming on the dash.. as he tried to turn the car over. So what did I do? You never really know how you are going to react in these sort of situations - fight or flight? I always figured I would be sensible (a chicken) and I would take the flight avenue. Nope. I wanted a fight. So I opened the door to the other car and my thinking (I can still remember - it was like nanoseconds worth of thought process) :

1 - Im going to get into the other car and park behind them to block them in. Hmmm nah that's a bad idea, they will just ram me and then both cars get damaged.

2 - I will get into the other car and I will chase them in my car - Hmm nah that's a bad idea.. high speed chases are best left for Hollywood blockbusters.

3 - Right Im getting the club lock out of the other car and Im going to go them. Hmmm bad idea these guys are going to have as much adrenaline as I have in me at the moment and they have screwdrivers and will do anything to get away. Plus, if I kill one of them I don't want to end up in gaol.

So I closed the car door and ran back upstairs and told Belle to call the police - which of course is the correct and most sensible thing to do.. but I had to reason with myself to do it. It wasn't my first instinct. I wish it was. So we called the police and they came really quick - like within 3 minutes.. it just so happens that there were 8 units down the road. Nonetheless the two guys in the car got away.. and rendered our car inoperable.

They didn't force entry - so they were either professionals or had electronic means of getting into the car (which is what the tow truck driver said).. the interesting thing is that they also didn't just rip the ignition barrel out of the car, they took the time to unscrew everything - all of the dash including the passenger side. The police said they were after the air bags and if they would have just ripped everything out they would have damaged the air bags. The tow truck driver said that the drivers said airbag is worth $2000 and the passenger side one is worth $4500. There is a black market for them by backyard panel beaters. Supposedly when air bags go off insurance companies usually write cars off as they are too expensive to fix them (including airbags), so they are purchased at auction for a few thousand dollars and then rebuilt from stolen parts and airbags - of course.

So that's been our fun over the last few days.. of course the car is insured - so its just the whole inconvenience of it all. Lucky we have a second car.