On Sunday night, after an evening at a friend’s house, I went back to my car – a Volkswagen Polo – to notice at first the warning lights didn’t work when I pressed the lock remote. I opened the door and thought for a second that it seemed much messier than usual with even a mini umbrella lying on the drivers floor mat. Then it stroke me that the inside lights were also off as the door was opened.
That’s when I realised that someone had broken into the car and tried to steel it. Plastic cover underneath the steering wheel and on the dashboard had been ripped off and wires where hanging. Nevertheless, the car started and I managed to drive home. I was quite puzzled still and had a few unanswered question poping up in my mind. Why didn’t they steel it as they seemed to know what they were doing? How did they brake in as I hadn’t seen any broken glass ? Did I forget to close the car? Did they just run off when I went out? Is there anything else they could have stollen inside? Why is the “trunk open” indicator on?
Then I started to think about all these crazy stories and thought that maybe there was someone hidden in the trunk waiting for me to drive back home and rob me there… Uncomfortable drive home I must say. I stopped outside my residence, next to the guardian and its – now very reassuring – shotgun. There was nothing in the trunk; not even my Kilimanjaro coat anymore… (At the light of the next day I finally manage to see where they had broken the lock to enter)
I went to the police for a rather simple testimony, quite brief, but it took us a good two hours. The police agent wrote it by hand, asking me for spelling confirmation from time to time. I was very cautious of his style too. At one point we had to start over because he was unhappy with a sentence and didn’t want to cross it out… We had a small funny chat about the broken lock issue: to my opinion, it had probably been broken with a screwdriver.
- How do you know it’s a screwdriver?
- I don’t, I said probably; I wasn’t there.
- Then tell what did they use?
- How could I know? I was not there. I can only guess from the shape of the broken lock, that it’s a tool somewhat similar to a screw driver.
- Hm… Ok. So how do you spell screwdriver?
In the end, after telling my story, he wrote the legal sentences before having me signing the testimony. Two thing I noticed: first no mention of the broken lock. His sentence said something along the lines of “I went out of the house, opened the car using the remote. I started the car which started; everything worked well but some wires were hanging from the dash board. I drove home.”
- Hm, but it doesn’t seem like you addressed the issue of attemptetd car theft here. It doesn’t even mention the broken lock!
- Well you didn’t tell me about the lock.
- I think I did, and we had a debate about the screwdriver!
He looks at me we a incredulous look, so I point with my finger the line on the “spelling paper” where I wrote for him screw driver. I had to rewrite some of it much to his despair as I was quite keen on crossing out words.
The second thing I noticed was the legal text underneath of which I had to sign. It was so funny that I wrote it down on the “spelling paper” to remind me of the exact words later. It said:
“I did not give permission to anyone to attempt to steel my company car. I swear that the content of this statement is true and help me god.”
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