Keep Your Friends Close, And Your Car Closer

Disclaimer: Just like my earlier post "A Day Less Ordinary," this story is true. Only the names have been changed.

Some nights I force myself awake in an attempt to escape my nightmare. It's always the same. I walk out to a parking lot, and my car is gone. Sometimes the location changes, but the result never does. I'm stuck wandering the lot, like a Seinfeld episode on perpetual loop. I have the dream so often that I know, in advance, that the car won't be there when I step outside.

I wish I could say that it's my subconscious searching for an undiscovered longing. But, truthfully, it's the direct result of a very real experience. My car was swiped when I was a teenager, but it was no random smash and grab. It was a premeditated theft--payback for something I had done. To set the scene correctly, I'll need to take you back to the same supermarket from my previous post.

Back then, the guys working at the grocery store had a type of code. One of our favorite in-store extracurricular activities was the Perk Alert. Whenever one of us spotted an attractive female roaming the aisles, we would pick up the nearest phone and announce an alert over the intercom system. We would say "Perk Alert, aisle 3," somewhat similar to how we would call for someone to clean up a spill. It went virtually unnoticed by the customers and management, but the guys would quickly saunter past the aisle and take a peek without appearing obvious.

One Perk Alert that we were treated to every day was a cashier named Michelle. We all flirted with her to some extent. Some more than others. Two of her biggest fans were Scooter and Chunk. They worked in the deli. Scooter and I were best friends. We had known each other for several years, and it's one of the primary reasons I started working there in the first place. I would always rib Scooter about wanting Michelle to be his girlfriend. The teasing had always been good-natured, but during one week when Scooter was on vacation, I decided to take the joke to the next level. For this, I enlisted the help of Chunk.

He didn't need much convincing. After I laid out the plot, Chunk got to work. He began crafting a letter that had supposedly been penned by Scooter and subsequently "left behind" in the break room. I don't remember any of the letter's details, but it was all about Scooter's undying love for our favorite cashier. Then I made copies of the letter. Lots of copies. And posted them all over the store, leaving them in conspicuous locations until all of the employees had had the chance to read them, including Michelle.

If I had been smarter about it, I would have taken down the letters before Scooter got back. But I was too pleased with my own genius to deny myself the satisfaction of Scooter's reaction. When he returned to the store, it didn't take him long to spot the letters. He began tearing them down immediately; but he really didn't seem that angry. It was weird. I knew it wouldn't take him long to deduce the source of the prank, and I gave him a couple of hours to cool off before I checked to see if he was OK. As I approached, I could tell that he was fuming on the inside, but he didn't want to let on.

"Are you mad at me," I asked.

Scooter didn't answer. He just kept his eyes focused on the floor he was sweeping. A few awkward moments passed, and then, without looking up, he said "I don't get mad, I get even."

For the next several weeks following that ominous threat, I was fairly alert to my surroundings. But nothing happened. Eventually, I let my guard down. Scooter started talking to me again. Everything seemed back to normal. But my friend hadn't simply forgotten; he was just taking his time. He was determined to not rush his revenge, and I had no idea what was coming.

On the night when Scooter took action on his final retribution, I was finishing a nine-hour shift, and all I wanted to do was go home. It was 10:00 o'clock, the store had just closed, and the only cars left in the parking lot belonged to the employees. As I strolled toward the spot I had parked in that morning, I really wasn't looking at anything except the pavement in front of me. Then I looked up. There was nothing there.

"Strange," I thought, "I don't remember moving my car."

I looked left. I looked right. Still nothing. Then I counted the total number of cars still in the lot. Four. None of them resembled anything close to a white '88 Oldsmobile Calais. The reality that someone had taken my car really wasn't sinking in, but because there was no reason for me to continue walking toward an empty parking space, I went back inside the store. There I found my manager, who was finishing his rounds.

"I can't find my car," I told him.

"Really," he asked quizzically. "Go back outside and make sure it's not there."

So I did. Not sure where to start, I headed toward a lamppost on the far end of the lot. As I got closer, my stomach turned. I could see two small objects laying in the spot where my car should have been. To my horror, I recognized them immediately--my Bible and my baseball glove. I always kept them in my backseat. Now, obviously, they had been displaced. "Great," I thought, "someone's stolen my car, and they don't want the guilt of driving around with my Bible!"

I scooped up my possessions and went back into the store again, this time to tell my manager to call the police. He was dumbfounded. "I can't believe it. Why would someone want to steal your car?" I didn't know, and I didn't care. My first instinct was to pick up the phone and call my parents.

"Someone stole my car!" I blurted as soon as my mom answered the phone.

"Really" she replied flatly. "I can't believe it."

"Why does everyone keep saying that," I said. "Just call the police and then come pick me up."

But my mom didn't seem interested in helping. She just kept saying "I can't believe it" over and over again. I was starting to get as mad at her as I was about the theft.

That's when Scooter walked through the door. He had a video camera, and it was recording. His devious grin was a mile wide. Immediately, I dropped to the floor. A wave of simultaneous emotions hit me at once. I was so relieved, and upset and embarrassed that all I could do was groan. I didn't know what to say. I tried to make myself as small as possible, hiding my face from the lens, but Scooter just walked over to me and zoomed in. He was relishing the moment. Chunk was there, too. That turncoat had helped Scooter set up the whole thing. They had been across the street, lying in a ditch with the camera, recording the events as they unfolded. The only person in the room who hadn't been in on the joke was my manager.

Eventually, I picked myself off the floor, at which time my "friends" took me behind the store, where they had hidden my car a few hours earlier. The one thing I couldn't figure out was how they got the keys to my car. My keys were in my pocket the whole day. Then it dawned on me; there must have been additional accomplices. They were my parents. The week before, Scooter pulled my dad aside during church and asked for a little assistance. Without a second thought, my dad handed him a spare of keys to my car.

You could say that I had it coming to me. And to some extent, I did. But I never expected such an elaborate scheme. It's done some lasting damage to my psyche, too. As hard as I try, I can't get rid of those dreams. Maybe some day I'll be able to make peace with my subconscious. Until then, at least I've made peace with Scooter.

As for Chunk? Well, that traitor never did get his comeuppance. I had lost my appetite for pranks after that night. One videotape of me groaning on the floor is enough for a lifetime, thank you very much.