It's a Beautiful Night in the Neighborhood...

I live on a busy street near USC in Los Angeles. When you live anywhere near USC, of course, you hear sirens constantly. That's no big deal. You see people getting arrested in front of your house when you leave for class in the morning or come home from a party at night. Whatever. Shit happens. Last year someone was stabbed to death two blocks away from my house. That was a little bit more upsetting than the usual but I can't say anyone was surprised.

Tonight, though, something cool happened.

My friend and I were upstairs in my room when we heard tires screeching (not uncommon) and then a huge fucking crash (uncommon). So of course we're already up and running down the stairs to see this but then immediately after the crash we hear sirens. Which is weird, you know, because usually you have to call the cops before they show up so this meant the cops were already following the guy which could only mean he was a law-abiding US citizen and would pull over and be compliant and provide me and my friend with absolutely no entertainment for the evening.

But just in case, we went downstairs anyway.

We got downstairs just in time to see seven cruisers hauling ass down the road with lights and sirens. Awesome. Then we start looking for the car that got hit. We see a car with its hazards on, parked in front of a driveway, with no one inside. Okay, we figure, this guy must have seen what happened and got out to talk to the cops. But where is the car that got hit? And where is this car's driver?

There's probably about fifty USC kids standing outside now, or leaning out of windows, all wondering what the fuck just happened when finally my friend and I think we should check the other side of the car, just in case.

And we realized why it was parked in a driveway.

It had been parked legally. And then it got nailed so hard it was pushed back ten feet. And the driver's side front wheel had been completely disconnected from the rest of the car and was hanging awkwardly at an angle. And the whole engine block was crumpled in on the driver's side. And those hazards were actually the car alarm going off but there was so much noise and confusion nobody had noticed this.

Oh yeah, and this car can't have been more than a year old. Its plates started with 6E. I bought my car in April, and its plates didn't come in until August (the dealer failed miserably) and they start with 6G. So, you know, E, F, G, that car's new. Really new. And really totaled.



So campus police comes and makes a report but they can't figure out whose car it is so they call LAPD and around the same time LAPD gets there, so does a private company that takes pictures of post-police-pursuit-accidents, and there is an epic throwdown between a pissed-off sergeant and the guy taking pictures and I thought for sure someone was gonna get beat down but eventually the cop realized that even though the guy was an asshole he was taking pictures from across the street and not fucking up the scene at all so he let him go and for like, two hours there was all this commotion five feet from my front door and it was so exciting but eventually we got exhausted and went back inside and when we came back out the cops were gone.

But the car was still there. Blocking the driveway. Apparently, they couldn't contact the owner, so they just said fuck it and left.

All of this was an awesome way to spend my night as it was, of course, until I realized that I was parked behind this very driveway, and if the driver had been ten feet off, it would have been my brand new car that got totaled. And not that I'm happy that anyone should have to come back to their car tomorrow morning and see that, but oh my sweet Jesus am I glad that I don't have to find the $1,000 for my deductible and pay sky-high premium rates for getting a brand-new car totaled within a year.

I wondered why when I registered my car in the Valley my insurance went down $100/month from when I was at school. Now I know.