Diligent Bible readers know that “Who ever has will be given more.” The neighbor with the Tesla XP100D parked in the driveway comes to mind. And the biblical text (Luke 18:8) continues: “But who ever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him”. No wonder some have and others have not. I come from a German Have Not family. One way you can tell is that nobody we knew had a car. I remember how astonished I was when I heard that in America a certain make-work building project for the unemployed had difficulties because there were no parking places for the cars of the unemployed. We who were fully employed, on the other hand, had lots of places to park but no cars to do it with. Life seemed absurd to me even then.
I now live among the Haves, however. I know that because many of my neighbors have been given more than fits in the house. That is why they have to store things in the garage and why one sees so many cars, very expensive cars often, parked in the driveway. I often wonder why people would take such risks. We do have burglaries. Several cars have been broken in and two were stolen in the neighborhood only recently.
But then I learned that car thiefs don’t steal cars to drive around in them. They steal them in order to dismantle them and sell the parts to fences who then peddle them cheaply to do-it-yourself mechanics. Owners of high end cars seldom do their own repairs. There would not be much of a market for used luxury car spare parts. Handling the cheaper cars’ parts, on the other hand, promises rewards. Take the Toyota “Camry”, for example. Half a million units of that model alone were sold last year in the United States. If parked in the driveway, your Camry is not safe. Can’t you just hear the car thief snicker as he tries to imagine the face you will make when you step out of the house in the morning, keys in hand, looking for the Camry you parked there, you thought?
The experience, sad as it is, might give you a few ideas however. I do not know what the situation is in your family but when my brothers and I were young we were impossible, I understand. Our father more than once suggested that the only way to get peace in the house was to put all three of us out in the street at night. Someone would come by and take us. Trouble is, he would add, they would bring you back first thing in the morning.
It does not work this way with old Camries, however, even if the transmission was shot and the brakes already worn down to the metal. So, say good bye to the old girl for good and get yourself a BMW i8. I bet I know where you will find space to park this one..
(c)2017 by Herbert H. Hoffman
Picture credit: Morguefile