Losing His Car, His Prized Possessions, and His Cool

It is a very upsetting thing to come out of your house and find your car gone -- especially for husbands.

I know. It happened to our family.

It was a sunny, fall-like Saturday morning in February 2002, and we were up preparing to begin our busy day. A friend was coming by at 8 to collect me to go shopping. (She was buying furniture for her new house, and I was advising her.)

At one point, I opened my front door to see whether she had pulled into my driveway. When I looked out, something seemed odd about the front of my house, but I didn't immediately grasp what it was. I looked across the street and noticed that a white Honda Accord was idling in front of my neighbors' driveway.

A friend of theirs had left the car running while going inside, I thought.

I went back inside and hastily made breakfast for my son, Zachary, and my husband, James, who would be heading out soon for Zachary's cello lesson.

I peeked outside a second time to see whether my friend had arrived and noticed the white Honda was still idling. I called my neighbor to tell him to remind his friend that the car was still running.

"Hi, Dwight," I said. "Whoever is visiting you still has their car running. I thought they might have forgotten."

"Nobody is visiting us," he responded. "I thought they were at your house. Maybe someone's visiting Anthony," another neighbor. As I talked to Dwight, I suddenly noticed what I hadn't before -- that our own "El Dorado silver" 1991 Honda Accord was not in front of our house.

Maybe James left it at work and got a ride, I thought, in denial. I think that reaction came from not wanting to face what I was starting to realize -- that our car had been stolen.

"James!" I yelled upstairs, returning to the kitchen to stir the cream of wheat on the stove. "Where did you park the car yesterday?"

"I parked it out front on the street," he yelled back.