Never a Dull Moment

Saturday morning the police came to my door.  They wanted to know where our little black Toyota Corolla was located.  When we bought Kassi her car we gave Jason our Corolla.  We haven't changed the title over yet so they traced it to us.  I asked why they were looking for the Toyota.  They said that the car was involved in a police chase that morning in a town about 40 miles away.  Uh, I said that I doubt it was my son, he doesn't ever go there, works nights and always stops for the police and waits for me to bail him out. I give them Jason's address and tell them that he has a 100 lb dog who barks but is not violent in any way.

They left, I called Jason.  After several attempts I finally wake him up.  I asked him why he was in that other county.  He didn't know what I was talking about.  I asked him if he had lent out his car.  He said no.  I told him that his car was involved in a chase with the police and got away.  At that moment he looked out and realized that his car was not in the driveway.

He had friends over the night before and he thinks that one of them took his keys and his car. Nice friends.  The police get to his place and he files a report for a stolen vehicle. He was very upset that one of his friends would do that. He was shocked that they would do that.

Thankfully by Saturday night his car was found.  By that time he was at work so we called on Sunday about his car.  It had been towed back to town but they weren't open on Sunday so we had to wait until this morning to get it.

This morning we went to get his car.  The car had been left at a church in the next county over and there was no damage.  They even left his key in the console. We paid $200 towing fee and he took it back home.

The police did dust it for fingerprints but I doubt that they will find the person.  I imagine that the odds are higher that Jason will find out who it was.

Our insurance will reimburse us the towing fee because we selected the towing option.  If we didn't have the towing option we wouldn't have gotten that fee back, it would have gone against the deductible which is higher than $200.

Sometimes I feel as though I just can't prepare my kids well enough for the outside world.  My kids can't imagine taking a friends keys and car, going to someone's house after they get off work and threatening them, trying to rob someone as they leave work.  These are things that they simply wouldn't do.  However, in some ways they aren't prepared for those that do these things.

In the last few weeks a couple of girls have been killed by teenagers in our country.  Then my 9 year old wants to go out front and ride her bike.  I find myself leery of allowing that.  I know that they would fall victim to someone trying to lure them.  They can't imagine that someone would want to actually harm them. Kids fall victim because they don't really understand that there is evil out there. It exists.  It is real. as a parent I try to shield my kids from some of that.  However, I then worry that they aren't prepared.  How do you find that balance?  How do you prepare your kids for the moment when they come up against those that look to harm them? This is something I am still working on.