Thu May 28, 2009, 12:47 PM

Before 2 a.m. last night, I was sleeping as soundly and as contentedly as would college-age Jonesy and Nikki after a boring workday that ended with a romantic/action double-feature at the Gigantoplex and afterward bedding down for the night in the nude and entwined in each other's arms....

At least I was dreaming it so.


Around 2 a.m., that all changed. I was awakened by the loud sound of metal hitting metal, so loud, even with my bedroom window being open a inch wide, I swore it happened right on my street.


Turned out, after we all got up and my father and I cautiously went out to see, it happened in our back lane. Apparently someone had been stealing a vehicle, this 4-door later model Chevrolet Lumina sedan, had been driving it too fast for the back lane, swerved left slightly, collided into our neighbour's garbage collection bin, flipped the bin over, smashing in the left doors, and the car came to rest gouging about an inch into the metal siding edging of our garage. Airbags were deployed and somehow through of all of that, the would-be thief managed to get out of the car and run off into the night.


Now here's where it gets slightly hazy...

The garbage bin, from its size and with regular weekly garbage pickups, serves four houses. It's made of welded steel and has a hard plastic flip-open lid. And somehow during the incident the bin ended up flipped over onto its back and onto its open lid...... The left doors of the vehicle were smashed in, eerily similar to what you may have seen on some specialty Hot Wheels vehicles that have simulated damage which you can flip to show or hide...... Add to that the wooden power pole next to which the garbage bin was standing had a few light gouges or scrapes on it, thankfully not ever near enough to cause the pole to tip or fall over...... So how do you suppose the car got dented on the left side? From the garbage bin, or the pole, as the car may have scraped against it?? And how did the right half of the car's windshield get smashed? When the garbage bin lid hit it before the bin landed, or from force of the passenger airbag?? ...... Plus, the tire marks on the back lane. Was this whole thing a one- or two-guy operation and the theft of one car? Or was it a high-speed race between two vehicles, one after the other, down the back lane and this one made a wrong swerve and.... BANNG!!!


Well, as I write this, the cops that finally arrived a little after 11 a.m. this morning (this was deemed a "low priority emergency call".... thankfully no one was left in the vehicle.... whoever did it had since ran off) are just wrapping up their on-the-spot investigation and are now getting the car towed away. Now if we can just get the city to remove the bin and replace it in its rightful place, we can somehow get back to normal.


But, boy, it was a scary interruption of sleep last night!

Anyway... maybe I'll need a nap later on today....

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UPDATE: Thu May 28, 2009, 5:19 PM

As it turned out, there was only one person and one car involved in the whole incident last night. From what the policemen were able to ascertain from the scene and from records and info was that the car owner's registration had expired two weeks ago.... and thet the car was taken on a joyride by a kid, either the owner's or one of their neighbour's!

See what even a few brief moments of joyriding will do, kids?? Don't even contemplate thinking about doing it yourself! It's just not worth it!

And oftentimes it's not only you who gets hurt.