Stupid kids...

I am very thankful for a husband who sleeps lightly. Matt woke up last week, at 2am, to the sound of an engine revving. After stumbling down the stairs and out to the front window he realized that the sound was my car and two kids were in the process of trying to steal my car. Apparently they didn't really know what they were doing because they couldn't get it to start. They broke the window, put it in neutral and pushed it into the street, but then couldn't get the engine to turn over.

I woke up to hear Matt on the phone having the following conversation:
Yes my car........ Well not my car, but my wife's car..... They are currently trying to steal it..... What do you mean? They are in the process of stealing the car.... I don't know, they are wearing hoodies and hats.... it's dark I can't see their faces...... Who should you send? Maybe the cops?........No, I'm not in danger, someone is trying to steal my car. Are you even listening to me?..... Should I call the police department directly or just go out there myself...... Lisa, do you know your license plate number?.......Oh, forget it....

That is when we hear sirens coming down the road. The kids run off in opposite directions and of course the cops don't see them. After combing the neighborhood for an hour they don't find anyone or anything.

My car had to be towed away because they had managed to ruin my whole steering column and ignition. I got a phone call from ICBC (the only car insurance company for all of British Columbia, yes the ONLY ONE) few days later to let me know that the repairs would cost $1,700. Thank goodness my deductible was only $300, but I was still pissed off that I was paying $300 for some stupid kids failure. And truthfully I figured that they would probably just write the car off and give me the few thousand that it's worth. Nope, I wasn't that lucky.

I got my car back yesterday and the owner of the collision shop said he thought it was going to be a write off, but ICBC had another 97 civic in their totaled yard that they could get the replacement parts from. So great, I get the junk yard parts, pay $300 bucks and hope everything still works. If I were in the U.S. I would probably change to another car insurance company, but I have no choice since ICBC is government run and the only way to have car insurance is to go through them. And you guessed it, they can also charge as much as they want for whatever they want, because no one has any other choice.

As far as the Canadian Gov't goes - I am a big fan of "free" health care, GST rebates, govt pension, Child Tax (monthly check for having a child under 18), one year of govt paid maturity leave and many other free handouts. That being said, you can see that I am not a big fan of the car insurance monopoly situation.

I am just praying that my car doesn't fall apart or I don't have any other random problems due to the junk yard parts they used.

STUPID KIDS!

I promise more positive blogs are on the way :)