CityLife: The Case of The Missing Subaru

We've been very busy unpacking boxes and moving into our new place, but here's a quick update on life in the city.

I was walking back to our new place last week and couldn’t find our car. This may be very normal for some of you, but I don’t normally misplace items—especially items as big as a car. I was 100% certain of where I had left it—a prime parking spot in front of our building.  After looking up and down the street, I asked Ginger to meet me outside—just to make sure I wasn’t crazy or going senile.  After a quick walk in both directions, she quickly confirmed that the car was not on the street.

Such is life in the big city.  We’ve all heard horror stories about rampant crime and how anything/everything of value will get stolen/trashed/destroyed if you live in the inner city. I guess I was semi-expecting it. So as I was reaching for my phone for the eventual call to the police, I happened to look in the direction of the Auto Repair Shop a few doors down.

I should note here that our area is almost entirely residential.  The only exception is an old car repair place that looks like it’s been around since the 1950’s (see the photo below). There is only room for 2 or 3 cars inside, and I noticed that one of them was a white Subaru Outback.

Capitol Hill Auto Service Center

Wait a minute---we have a white Subaru Outback, and closer inspection revealed that the license plate was ours! That was my car up on a life inside a strange auto garage.

Long story short…..there was another Subaru Outback (although it was green) scheduled for a tire change and it was sitting on the street as well. One of the mechanics walked down the street and stopped at the first Subaru he came to….and strangely enough---the key fit! We quickly sorted out the mess and 5 minutes later, I was driving away with my original car, old tires and all.

There never any shortage of unusual things happening here. In addition to almost getting a new set of tires, in the last week I came across a man blowing his "shofar" in front of the US Capitol (I later saw him in front of the Supreme Court as well) and this trio making music on the side of the road. (Yes---they had wheels mounted on the upright piano and had pushed it out onto the street corner.)

Blowing the shofar on the steps of the US Capitol.

Street corner music. They were really into a scrappy rendition of "Memphis Town"

Just another story of life in the city….

Come back soon for a visual trip around DC during my favorite time of the year: Fall.