At or around 6:45 on the evening Friday the 1st of June I received the call that would change my life forever for a little while..

Normally I don’t answer numbers that I don’t recognize, but there was something about this 510 number that just reeled me in.

But first a little background: About a month ago my trusty little Integra which I’ve driven since high school was taken in plain view at the South Hayward BART station somewhere between 7:30 a.m. and 5p.m. that day, forcing me to drive my gas guzzling, air polluting, seal killing, Explorer since then. I ended up doing the whole police report thing, where an officer Poindexter was very kind and helped me out.

Having had liability only on my little Japanese companion, I was essentially out a good $1500-$2000.

Fast forward to last week then. I was lying on my couch watching TV and scratching myself when I received the call from an oldish Asian man..
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this uh, Tien….Nagooyen?”
“Yes this is Tien… Nagooyen.”
“Hi, do you de-rive a…Akura Integra?”

The magic words I’d been waiting to hear for weeks now.

“Uh, yes, yes I do!”
“And was it stolen recently?”
“Yes YES it was stolen recently!!”
“Oh, because…it is parked in front of my house right now, and..”
“I’LL COME PICK IT UP RIGHT NOW WHERE DO YOU LIVE?!?!”

He gave me his address, which ended up being no more than 8 miles away.  I called my dad to come with me, along with my sister, and off we went on the happy mini family road trip.
Sister: So did you get the guy’s name?
Me: Hmm, no.
Sister: Did he say you can just pick up your car?
Me: I don’t know, I guess.
Sister: How did he get your number?
Me: *shrug* Probably called the cops or something?
Sister: The cops aren’t supposed to give that information away to people, they’re supposed to call you.
Me: Oh. Well. He sounded nice.

We ended up calling up the cops, making the whole process official and all.  Of course we needed the release form and all, but more importantly, to make sure this wasn’t some sort fancy get-up to lure me into being kidnapped and waking up with a missing kidney or something.  The man was Asian after all.

*ring*
After explaining the situation to the dispatcher..

Dispatcher: Do NOT go into the house, for all we know this guy stole your car.
Me: But, he sounded really nice, can’t I just go?
Dispatcher: NO, do NOT confront the man, do NOT drive home. If we pull you over and see that it’s a stolen car we WILL put a gun to your head. You do NOT want that.
Me: Oh, I guess not.

After finding the house on my trust GPS system, and more importantly, seeing my lovely little car looking so helpless just sitting there, I almost wanted to cry. I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch it, muchless drive it, which overwhelmed me with a feeling of helplessness.

Where was I when it was taken away? Why am I not allowed to reclaim it right now?

It was like a parent having to deal with their kid being kidnapped, and upon reuniting with him not being able to hold him in their arms again–and instead having to wait for God knows how long.

So there she was just sitting there, full of dirt and grime, having been through a rough, painful few weeks, just aching to be washed and driven again.

Oh well, just a little longer I thought to myself.

As we pulled up to the house in question we noticed an elderly Filipino couple in their front yard watering their lawn.

Going against all police warnings I approached them.

“Hi,” I said as I walked up to them in as nonthreatening a way as I could.

The woman just looked over at me blankly, while the husband replied, “hi, is this your car?”

“Yes, yes it is..”
“Yeah is been parked here for few days, I ask my neighbor if its theirs so they say no. I then open your door and found your info in there.”

I approach my car, the closest I’d been to it in a month–the longest period of separation I’d had between it since I first had it–and sure enough the doors were unlocked, and true to his words, there was a 24-hr fitness registration piece of paper with my name and cell # on it.

“Thank you,” I said to him, wanting to hug and kiss the little man.
“You’re welcome.”

Little did he know how much this had all meant to me.

I then called up the police again and explained what just happened, and asked if I could take care of all this paperwork business at home, but again he insisted that I’d be pulled over and shot in the head if I tried to drive home (or something).

I reluctantly agreed, but then realized that there would be no problem in me driving back home–there was no more gas left.

As luck would have it though the thieves left a gas can in the car, complete with siphoning hose and all. A short trip to the gas station later, we filled ‘er up and the Integra, once again, blood gas was flowing through its veins once again.
El po-po eventually came some 30 minutes later, we filled out some papers, talked over a few things, and I was good to go home.
It was perhaps the most satisfying drive that I’d ever had..right up there with the drive after I got my license.

What a moment it was..

They say if you love something let it go and if it comes back its yours.

Truly, we were meant to be..