This past weekend, I made some allusions to having bad days, spending time in the back of a police car and being in a New York City police precinct without telling people what happened or why I was there. I didn’t want to tell the entire story while it was happening, just in case anything happened, but I feel it’s time to tell the tale and let everyone in on the story.
On Saturday, I spent the day at the Arts, Culture and Technology Meetup Project: Matchmaking event at ITP on the NYU campus. While having a post event drink with friends and co-organizers, I received a text from my friend Leslie asking if I wanted to go to the Feast Conference afterparty. After a little misdirection, I picked her up and we headed down to SoHo to visit the afterparty at Yogaworks.
Leslie and I visited Yogaworks, where we spent a half hour meditating in the chill room to live didgeridoo music, occasionally accompanied by bongos and a flute, played as we sat in the middle of the room. We surveyed the premises a little more before heading out to Peep for dinner then stopped off at The Dove to wish a friend of hers a happy birthday. When we decided we had had enough, we attempted to return to my car.
With a few minor mental lapses about the location of where we had left the car, we returned to where we parked the car to find it not where we left it. Over the course of the next three hours, I walked four blocks north and south of where we parked and three to four blocks east and west to no avail. Unfortunately, my phone was extremely low on battery at that point and I needed to borrow a phone at a local deli that happened to still be open at that hour. Once my phone calls didn’t bring satisfaction, I headed uptown to Grand Central Station, where I had to sleep near the entrance until it opened at 5:15am. I caught the first train home and slept for several hours, when I hoped people would answer their phones.
Waking up after noon on Sunday wasn’t much more help. There was still no trace of my car, and I was told I needed to return to the city to call 911 and report my car missing. Heading back to the scene of the crime, as it were, I called 911 and waited for officers to come take my report. After speaking to them, I was asked to ride in the back of the police car while we looped around a little bit to see if the car was nearby before going to the station.
Of course, I wasn’t locked in the back seat, and they even rolled the window down after a while as I rode in the back of their car. At one point, a woman talked to the officers to complain about leaving a bag in the back of a cab, then asked the officers to take her all the way to the upper east side, since she was in a hurry and couldn’t take that cab. The cops had a few choice words after she stepped away about her asking to be taken all the way uptown, even after she saw I was in the back seat.
Back at the station, I filled out assorted paperwork and was able to head home to inform my insurance carrier about what had happened the prior evening. The next morning, I spoke more in depth with a claims agent and called all the local tow pounds to see if they had my car, which none of them seemed to have in their possession.
So now I am sans automobile, plus I am missing my laptop bag that I had brought into the city to make use of at the Project: Matchmaking event. I am hoping my car, laptop, iPad and other assorted items in my car and bag appear soon or I’ll be forced to write them all off and replace them, which my insurance may cover, but I would rather not have to start everything from scratch and rebuy all my possessions.
