I live in a fairly small coastal town where not much usually happens, but this week, we made county-wide news with a case of attempted grand theft. The story has to be one of the best examples of “the more you read, the worse it gets” that I have ever heard.

Our most posh neighborhood consists of a lot of mansions on the water. Apparently, the suspect tried to steal an extremely expensive kayak from the dock in the backyard of one of these mansions… in broad daylight… by paddling away in the kayak!

But it gets better. What makes this neighborhood so expensive is not just that it’s on the water, but also that through some clever engineering, the waterways there are not subject to the coastal tides, so the rich people can enjoy their boats and docks twenty-four-seven. 

How did they achieve this? By closing off the waterways with locks! So, all the police had to do was to wait for the thief, furiously paddling in his getaway kayak, to get to the lock and then sit there — for five full minutes — waiting for the gates to open. 

Needless to say, the suspect was arrested, and the posh kayaks are safe in their docks once again.

I regularly use the same chain garage for any work I need on my car. Their building is squeezed into an oddly-shaped site in a busy part of the city that isn’t very practical, but they make it work.

Customers aren’t allowed past a certain point, so we drive our cars into a small area with several marked parking spaces, park, walk into the office to register our car, confirm what we brought it in for, and hand over the keys. Then, a member of staff drives the car back when they are ready for it. Once the work is finished on the car, because there are never enough parking spaces at the front, they put the cars in a yard behind the building until the owner arrives, and then a staff member drives it out to us at the front.

I have brought my car in for its MOT (an annual roadworthiness test). I drop it off in the morning and come back to the garage after work to pick it up. I drive a Fiat 500, a small model with a fairly distinctive appearance, in pastel green. I’ve been in the office to pay and pick up the paperwork, and the staff member behind the counter tells me that a mechanic is bringing the car around right now, so I step out the door of the office into the front area to wait.

As I step out, a woman who looks to already be in a huff walks in from the street and looks around, frowning. She spots me, hesitates, and then walks over and stands next to me, looking in the same direction as me but never at me. I have the sneaking suspicion that she has decided I look like I know what I’m doing and so is going to copy me. (I don’t know what it is about me, but this happens a lot.)

A few moments later, one of the mechanics drives my car around the corner from the workshop area. He’s going very slowly due to the awkward layout, and I start to move to the spot where I assume he is going to pull up. As soon as I take a step, the woman takes off running toward my car. Before the mechanic has even stopped it, she is alongside it and trying to open the driver’s door. I rush over, just as the mechanic opens the door to get out. I see he’s about to hand her the key.

Me: “Wait! That’s my car!”

Woman: “Nnno! Nnno!”

She yells this at me like she’s trying to stop a dog from jumping up at her. The mechanic pauses and holds onto the keys.

Mechanic: *To me* “What’s the registration of your car?”

Me: “It’s [correct registration].”

Mechanic: “Okay.” *To the woman* “This is this lady’s car. I’ll bring yours out next. What was the registration?”

Woman: “This is my car! The registration is [something similar to what I said but with the characters in the wrong order].”

Realising she got it wrong, she walks around to the front of my car to look at the plate and starts reading it off. Meanwhile, I show the mechanic the paperwork for the car which I am still holding, and he hands me the keys. The staff member from the office has come out to see what’s happening, and I think that I’d better speak with him, so I surreptitiously lock the car and put the keys in my bag.

As the guy from the office approaches, the mechanic points at the woman and says to him:

Mechanic: “I think she was trying to steal this car.”

The woman goes off like a rocket, stamping, swearing up a storm, and screaming that the garage has messed up and is sending her precious, beloved car off with a thieving w****! She then throws herself onto the bonnet — at least, she attempts to, but she misjudges it and slides onto the ground, thankfully without denting the car.

A manager then comes out of the office and approaches. The mechanic explains to her what has happened while the woman picks herself up off the floor, now loudly complaining about it being dirty. (It’s a garage, love.) To my surprise, the manager says this to the woman:

Manager: “Mrs. [Woman], we spoke about this last time. Just because a car is brought out while you are standing here, it doesn’t mean it’s your car. Please go into the office. I will deal with your paperwork and call for your car, and then you can leave.”

The way she says “leave” sounds very final, but I don’t think the woman notices. The fight goes out of her a bit, and she follows the manager and the office staff member back to the office while the mechanic looks over the bonnet of my car to make sure it hasn’t been damaged

We are still standing there when the woman’s car is brought out. It is a large, dark grey SUV, quite new but covered in scratches and dents. The mechanic and I both look from that car to mine, and I’m sure we are both wondering how she could possibly have mistaken my car for hers. It strikes me that she might be drunk or something.

Me: “Do you think that woman should actually be driving?”

Mechanic: “No. I think the manager is probably calling the police on her, though. That’ll be fireworks.”

Having had enough drama for the afternoon, I thanked him and left.

Related:
People Who Make You Think “How Are You Allowed To Drive?”

I’ve had a problem off and on with my landline phone for almost twenty years now. I am autistic, and I qualify under state law for a bare-bones, no-frills landline phone line for really cheap; the idea is that I have a phone to call 911 on if necessary.

For some reason that I have never discovered, the local phone company that supplies that lifeline landline is utterly convinced, beyond any reason, that I am operating a small business and the landline is my business phone line.

For the first few years living here, I averaged one telemarketing call and two mailed promotional letters inviting me to upgrade to a business phone line. I always said no because the basic business line doesn’t do anything my lifeline doesn’t with regard to voice calls, and while it works better for faxes or modems, I never used those on that line.

Then, one month, without my knowledge, they switched me to a business line, causing my phone bill to go from $12 a month to $90 a month. But I was on paperless billing because my monthly bill was fixed by law — $12 a month — so I just kept paying my $12, and the unpaid bills kept piling up.

Eventually, the phone company sent me a paper Final Notice in the mail, saying that if I didn’t pay my bill in full immediately, they’d cut me off and take me to court.

I probably should have let them do it, because it is illegal under state law for them to cut a lifeline plan, and the judge would not be amused about that fact, nor would the judge be happy that they had switched my phone line from a lifeline plan to an expensive business plan without permission from anyone with authority to sign contracts on my behalf.

But, I decided to skip the hassle and just point out the problem to the customer service representative on the phone.

My next bill — no longer paperless — showed the proper balance owed: $12.

But… ever since, I’ve been averaging one promotional letter per week from the phone company trying to get me to upgrade the phone service for “my” small business to one of their business plans, so I’m always wary of it happening again.

In Alaska, getting rid of nonfunctional cars through legal means tends to be pretty expensive because they usually need to be shipped “down south” for disposal. Consequently, it’s very common practice for people to abandon their derelict vehicles in whatever parking lot, bike lane, or piece of private property (rarely their own) they find most convenient. It is also common practice for these abandoned vehicles to remain in place for months at a time despite complaints, supposedly because the tow yards and police impound lots are full of other derelict, abandoned vehicles.

In January, two abandoned Subarus, complete with missing wheels and smashed windows, appeared in the parking lot of the local Little League baseball field, in clear view of a major road. Every day, I passed these cars while walking my dog and while driving to work. Around mid-April, the cars still had not been removed despite their obvious abandonment.

One evening, I took my dog out for a walk around 10:00 pm after a very long day at work. While passing by the Little League parking lot, I noticed a pristine black SUV parked next to one of the abandoned Subarus. A man appeared to be loading a box of something into the back of the SUV, and he gave me a good thirty-second death glare as I walked past on the sidewalk on the far side of the parking lot from him. He slammed down the trunk door, jumped into his car, and then blasted out of the parking lot so fast he skidded in the snow.

After getting home, I filed an anonymous tip to the cops that I thought the abandoned cars were being used as a drug drop.

Both cars were gone from the parking lot by noon the next day.

CONTENT WARNING: Assault, Bigotry, Violent Threats

This happened when I was in college, at the local [Major Chain Store] that is known for always being… “interesting”. I have SO MANY stories from this place.

I’m pale, and at the time, I walked with a cane. I have a condition where my heart rate can get too high, my blood pressure can drop, and I can pass out — from standing too long, usually, but anxiety can bring on episodes, too. I wear a headscarf on holidays and special occasions.

There are many types and styles of headscarves. On this day, I was wearing it in a style where it completely covered my head and then draped around my neck, and it was secured with pins. I use dressmaking pins; they’re not very visible in the scarf, but they do not have anything covering their pointy ends. I make sure I place them so they will hold the fabric in place and not stick me. Since it is a holiday, I am also wearing traditional clothing: a long skirt, a white shirt with some embroidery on it, and a fabric belt.

This also happened right after the 2016 election. My college town went from one Nazi group to three literally overnight, and they would come onto campus a lot to harass us. The racists were very emboldened at that time. This was maybe a few weeks after that, when stuff had calmed down a bit, but it was still pretty bad. I made the mistake of going to [Store] alone, in traditional clothing.

I was going around the store, picking up a few things. My backpack was in the front of the cart so I wouldn’t have extra weight on me. I was standing at the end of an aisle trying to find something and had to look up where it was on my phone.

Out of nowhere, my headscarf was RIPPED off of my head as someone behind me yelled:

Woman: “TERRORIST B****!”

Luckily, the scarf only had the end around my neck, so it pulled on my neck but didn’t fully choke me. Still, this definitely activated my fight-or-flight response.

The woman started SCREAMING as I turned around. Apparently, one of the pins had stuck her when she ripped my scarf off.

Woman: “You’re a terrorist! And you assaulted me! I need a manager! Somebody call the police!”

A couple had been down the aisle, saw it happen, and ran over. The nice woman kind of threw her sweatshirt on my head and got between me and the screaming woman. I panicked at first, but then I realized she was trying to help cover my head. The nice man with her got between [Woman] and me and started yelling at her. [Nice Man] grabbed my scarf back from and handed it to [Nice Woman], who handed it to me and held her sweatshirt up around my head to sort of block people’s view while I tried to get my scarf back on. I honestly didn’t even wrap it properly; I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

[Woman] was still screaming, now at the man.

Woman: “The police are going to arrest her for being a terrorist and assaulting me! How dare you?!” *Digging through her purse* “I’m going to pepper spray you both!”

A nearby employee had come out of an aisle to see what was happening and ran off — to get the manager I’m assuming. [Nice Man] yelled back at [Woman] and took the pepper spray from her.

Woman: *To me* “You’re a traitor to your own race, you terrorist b****!” *To [Nice Man]* “Pin her to the floor so I can pepper spray her! I’m doing a citizen’s arrest! Keep her here until the police and the FBI get here!”

By then, I was shaking and crying, my heart rate was extremely high, and I knew I needed to leave or I was going to pass out.

Nice Woman: *To me* “Do you want to leave?”

I nodded. She grabbed my backpack and the arm that I wasn’t holding the cane in, and she quickly walked me down the aisle and out of the store. We just left my cart where it was.

Nice Woman: “Where is your car?”

I tried explaining that I was a college student and had to wait for the bus, but I was coughing and trying to breathe, as my heart rate was well over 180 at that point.

Nice Woman: “Look. I’m a nurse, and you are clearly not okay. Do you have a medical condition? What do you need?”

I explained what my condition was.

Me: “I need to sit or lie down; I’m gonna pass out.”

Nice Woman: “Come sit in our van.”

Usually, that would obviously be a no, but we were standing in the middle of a parking lot, I was about to pass out, and currently, my brain was not getting very much oxygen. [Nice Woman] took me to her van and opened the side door. I sat on the edge of the car and promptly fainted.

I woke up a few minutes later, and [Nice Woman] was holding my wrist in one hand, checking my pulse, and looking at her watch. I mumbled something so she’d know I was awake. She just kept telling me it was okay and I was doing fine. After I recovered a bit, I sat up and realized that [Nice Man] was standing outside the car. (I think he was trying to give me privacy.) I asked for the Gatorade from my backpack and sipped on that — it helps with the fainting — while he explained what had gone down.

The manager showed up with store security, and [Nice Man] explained — over [Woman]’s screaming — what had happened, and he handed her pepper spray to the security guy, who told him that the police had been called.

I looked over and, sure enough, there were cop cars pulled to the front of the store.

Nice Man: “Have you been hurt? Do you want to talk to the police?”

Honestly, I’m scared of cops and just wanted to go home, so I declined to talk to the police or press charges. [Nice Man] went back inside to talk to the police a bit more, and I tried to fix my scarf a little better. I had lost a few pins through all this, which was kind of annoying, so I couldn’t wrap it how it was earlier.

Nice Woman: “Your heart rate was around 200 when you passed out. Luckily, it went down again quickly; I had considered calling an ambulance. Oh! [Nice Man] is texting me!”

She read out to me what was going down back in the store.

As it turns out, I didn’t need to press charges. [Woman] was so infuriated that [Nice Man] would help a “terrorist b****” to “get away” that she got a bit… aggressive. She was yelling at the manager, security, and the police officers when [Nice Man] went back in. When she saw him, she whipped out her pepper spray — which, apparently, they were dumb enough to give back to her — and started SCREAMING at him. A cop grabbed her arm to stop her, and she tried to pepper spray them. She was taken down and cuffed. [Nice Woman] was positively gleeful as she told me about [Woman] getting tackled. Apparently, [Woman] then started screaming about suing the cops, getting the FBI involved, and so on.

I didn’t get to see [Woman] get taken off to jail, sadly; my bus pulled up and [Nice Woman] helped me over to it.

Since then, I refuse to go by myself to any store if I am wearing a headscarf, even though I live in a different area now. I wish I had gotten contact information to keep in touch with the nice couple, but I was too frazzled and desperate to go home and sleep it off.