A better way to foil “car hijackers”!
It only took me two weeks to come up with a better crime scene scenario than I had dealt with in real life.
It came when I was waking up one morning. (Now how much of our creative work is really done while sleeping? And how do you convince your boss that you were really working and not just ‘resting your eyes” when sitting at your desk?)
Anyway... in a recent column I told about the concern I had when my husband Paul and a relative met a stranger in a distant town who was selling a car they had advertised on the internet. Cash was required.
We’ve heard about the dangerous results that can occur.
But Paul had grinned when we discussed this plan and he figured out that I was considering all sorts of possible criminal behavior. He asked if I would take a gun along? I said I’m only comfortable carrying a camera.
But I was too tired to go along anyway and he took off by himself.
Later that night Paul called me from the mall where they were meeting the man with the car. Paul was sitting in our car with the cash while the others took a test drive.
But he didn’t call back again.
And after another hour or so I was worried and checked the “app” on our iPhone to find out where he - or his phone - was located.
To my surprise, our car was headed south to the Iowa border - not north to Cannon Falls.
Well, I ran the possibilities over in my mind: if I call and the phone rings, then the kidnappers will know about it and they’ll throw it away and I won’t be able to track him.
If Paul left the phone in the car, the person stealing it will know it’s there and throw it away and I won’t be able to track the car.
Because I couldn’t think of anything else to do... I called Paul. This could have had bad results. But he answered and explained he had just turned the wrong way on the freeway and couldn’t find the next turn to get home. And he had stopped to get a bite to eat!
Now it’s a couple of weeks later. When I woke up I thought of another plan that I think would have been better!
Instead of alerting the criminal stealing the car (or worse) by the ringing on Paul’s cell phone, I could have hit 911 and called the State Patrol. I could have explained the scenario and asked them to look for Paul’s car on the highway.
Because I was tracking our car on my cell phone “app”, I could have told them right where to look for him.
Then perhaps they could have turned on their flashing lights and pulled Paul’s car over and checked it out!
I guess it’s a reminder to me that it’s better that I don’t try to do everything myself.
And besides... they carry a gun.
