It's very hard to convince a boy.
Posted by Streetboy on 2010-01-28 03:07:20, Thursday|
The next day, as soon as I came out of the house, Erick arrived within minutes. He wanted me to get the engine going. " Hey, no the battery is dead" -"Can't you go buy one?" That was the hard part, explaining that the first thing to do was finding out who owned the car and explaining that the car wasn't mine. He was puzzled, after all that car sits in MY garage, on MY property. Trying to explain I wasn't going to invest time and money to have someone claim it later. The previous night, at work with some co-workers the situation was debated and the conclusion was that there were chances I couldn't either junk the car, sell it or use it, without at least trying to find it's legal owner.Erick was disapointed then thought this was the end of it. I told him that I would work on that. Being a beautiful summer day, from the front porch I called the closest license office, afterall I had the registration papers, there was a plate on that car sure they could help me. Erick was extasic. I hit a brick wall, with them, what ever information they have is strickly confidential. Erick dicided he wasn't staying on the porch to hear me getting shoved from one department to another. Then he said: "Can I at least go and wash it?" I saw no reason to stop him. Meanwhile I gave up the fight trying to convince civil servants to cooperate. I walked to the back watching Erick dry the car, I didn't know what to tell him, The paint on the car was more then half decent and with a good rubbing compound then a wax it would look great. I got closer and Erick guessed that I didn't get anywhere close to a solution. He just looked at me and said "Call the Cops" then Added "What if the car was originally stolen and stored in the garage, nobody would know, nobody would see it." Erick's father came over, asked if we started, this had to be heard, Erick looked at him and just replied "It's not OURS yet to work on it." I told his father about the unseccesful call to the regidtration office, then Erick's idea, but mentionned that with a plate on it, that matches the owner registration papers from the gloves compartment and to top it off, the key set still in the ignition, chances of it to be stolen were slim. Erick's father said," yes but what if the car had no plate on it, then the papers wouldn't be there and no keys. Then your request would have a very good point. We looked at each others the plate came off, hurled into the trunk, the papers and the keys were taken into the house. I called the cops, explained the situation, they thanked me for my concern, they told me they would send a detective to look at it. Amazingly, the detective arrived within an hour, Erick almost dragged him to the garage, telling him the story before I could even open my mouth, telling him we'd like to keep it, restore it and so on. I think the poor guy started to get dizzy, he started to look for an ID number, or a serial number plate, we finally found one. He filled a complete report form, then as he was leaving, he explained that it may take up to a week before we get any news. I was fine with this but not Erick, he wanted to know if the car could be OURS. The guy explained, if it was stolen many years ago, the rightful owner was refunded it's value and the insurance owns the car, but will most likely let us have it becaose of the poor condition, if the car was simply abandonned, and the owner didn't bother to re-register it, or officially junk it, it was ours, a new set of papers could be issued, as long as the car went through an inspection. Erick and his father left for supper, and the guy told me he'd try to hurry it up, a good way to keep the boy busy, then added the chances they'd find no record was big, so unofficially he said 90% chances nobody would claim it, but you because without records it doesn't belong to anybody. The next 3 days must have felt the longest for Erick. We talked a lot, waiting, we got to know a little about each others. SB |
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