City Living Suck-a-tude

You know, my car is getting raped while it is parked on the street. The first week I moved to downtown, someone smashed my passenger side window in. They rifled through the car, but nothing appeared to be missing. Oh no. They did take my Safeway shopping card, which I used to scrape condensation and the occasional frost off my windows. This was a fiasco as I have never had this happen before. I was in hysterics. The Sacramento police do not come out and take reports when it is a simple case of vandalism and theft. I think it is kind of ridiculous that they don’t, but regardless I had to fill out a police report online or go down to the station. Long story short, insurance covered it, B929 saved the day by helping me cover the window with plastic until it could be replaced. He also listened to me while I was in hysterics over the whole situation.

I decided that if my car was vandalized again, I would get a parking space. I did not determine the “level” of vandalism that would make me pay an additional $100 a month to keep my car off the street.

So this past weekend I was packing up to head to Santa Rosa, when I discovered that someone stole the Toyota symbol off the front of my car. I was so pissed! But it was also kind of funny because the emblem has a bunch of dirt underneath that never washed off during the carwashes, so there is now a “dirt” emblem where the true metal emblem used to be. But why take it?!? That is my question. Because every time I pass another yota I am tempted to steal their emblem to replace mine.

The resale value of my car is going down every day I have it parked on the street.

So was this vandalism enough for me to get a parking space? Probably not. This was a level 2 vandalism. If it had been closer to a level 5, or 9 (like breaking a window, slashing a tire, etc.) I would consider it.

Do you other city dwellers face a similar dilemma? Or is it just me?