Written by Jason Brand

After a long night of watching movies at a friend's house, I decided it was time to go home. I said good-bye to all of my friends and walked out onto the stoop. It was still dark (4:00 A.M.) and could barely see the street where I parked my Mediterranean Blue Dodge Dart. As I walked closer, I realized I still could not see the usual illumination of the body chrome. Yet, I still had to walk closer to see that my car was not where I had parked it. My gut began to tighten and an intense fever draped over me. I first thought my car had rolled down the hill, where it would be kissing a Chevy truck, but there was no sign of my car down the hill nor up the hill. I had to admit to myself that my car was not where I parked it. Like the infamous Volkswagen bug named Herbie, from the Disney movies, my car drove away without me. Completely disgusted and still hoping that it was all a joke, I called the police to report a stolen vehicle.

For the next two weeks, after many hours searching for it on the streets, from the air, posting numerous flyers, and receiving five phone calls about the whereabouts of the car, it was found at the end of a shoddy dirt road hidden in a ditch. The glass had been smashed out, the mag wheels and tires taken, even the carburetor was stripped off the car. Not to mention that the hoodlums jumped up and down on the roof and hood of the car. However, the "new" interior was untouched and all of the priceless chrome was untouched, so I had to consider myself lucky. I was even more lucky because the 14-year-old boy who found the car stumbled on it by accident. He was riding his motorcycle and fell off after a failed attempt of climbing a hill. In frustration he threw his helmet up in the air, but forgot where it landed when he calmed down. He stumbled across the car snuggled tightly in some bushes. The boy noticed that besides the recent destruction, the car was in good shape. Thinking that was unusual, he searched the car for some sort of identification, and came across my registration in the glove box. He then looked for my name in the phone book and called my home. I was elated to discover that my car was found, but through all the elation, I was sorry to hear about what they had done to the car.

After a two and a half hours of manipulating the car onto the back of the tow truck, and a "valiant" effort by my father and the tow truck driver, Kevin, the car finally returned to its proper home. Thus concludes Chapter 1 of "The D.A.R.T. Project," D.A.R.T. representing my feelings towards the crooks . . . "Damn A**holes Really Trashed it"


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