Donate A Car

 It wasn't a smash and grab. They took their time. Twenty minutes or so, if you can believe the clock on the security camera. During that time, a number of folks passed by, including a substitute teacher and two guys who were at our school to do surveying for solar panels that might eventually be installed on our campus. 

None of them stopped the car from being stolen. 

Our fifth grade teacher often takes lunch in his car, for the privacy and the opportunity to catch up on sports talk. He didn't do that on one day. On the day his car was stolen. During lunch. In broad daylight. 

As it turns out, the security cameras are more useful if they are being monitored by someone on a constant or at least regular basis. Instead, they have been mostly useful for winding back the tape to see what happened while we weren't watching. This has been the case for the weekend break-ins, and the early morning collision of the trash truck with the corner of the building. They are evidence, but solidly after the fact. 

When our fifth grade teacher came to the office, looking a little confused and angry, he let us know that his car was gone. Because he always parks in the same place, it was easy to figure out at which camera we should look. We watched a car pull up, back up to the car that would be stolen. We watched people go by. There was no sound, but we can assume that someone must have heard the breaking glass that would be the only remaining sign of the theft. Fifty yards away, kids were playing on the playground. Teachers were in the staff room making copies and choking down their lunches in anticipation of the rest of the day. No one stopped the thieves as they did their business. 

They stole a teacher's car. The one he uses every day to take him to school for yet another day of educating. In this case, the discreet irony being that this is the school that he once attended as a boy. He returned to share his gifts and wisdom with his community. He didn't expect to have to share his car as well. 

For a while we stood around the office, exchanging stories of cars we had lost to a tiny sliver of the city that would do such a thing. We commiserated, but ultimately our fifth grade teacher was left with the chore of dealing with insurance and police reports and all the attendant stress of what had happened during lunch. 

Riding my bike home that evening, I thought about how quickly my thoughts drifted to retribution when our car was stolen so many years ago. The stages of grief that were run through on the way to acceptance. I thought about the bicycle I "donated" to the community. And the various bits of wealth that has been redistributed through me and my family over the years. 

I wished for justice, but adjusted my sights on the eventual settlement.