GUEST POST: Carnapped

(This post is written by Bianca for Money Makeover)

May you live in interesting times, is one Chinese saying, or curse, whichever way you want to look at it. We do live in interesting times. Just when we thought that we are probably getting it right, calamity struck. Our car was taken. It was not insured.

A little background.

The hubby drives a 9-year-old truck that was the apple of his eyes. His brother handed it down to us four years ago. We paid the balance whenever we could and had already given a total of P90,000, the last installment just very recently. There is, of course, the cost of maintaining it which ran up to some P200,000 over the years. He had dreams of “dressing” it up – in March, he bought it a P20,000 set of wheels filled with nitrogen. He wanted it “lifted”, repainted, made into a macho monster truck. It was a constant companion when we moved furniture, or people, from here to there, and a comfort in the many times that my much-older car has broken down or was being repaired. He never wanted a new one. He was content and happy, my boo.

Then it rained.

Literally. At 6:30 in the evening, torrential rains blotted out the sun. It was a typical downpour, in a typical day of May, and the hubby went about his business. He stepped outside of his office; saw his truck getting bathed by the onslaught of rain. He crossed the street to somewhere and thirty minutes or so after, just when the rain was slowing to a trickle, there in the parking spot, was a vast emptiness. He scratched his head, refusing to believe what he could not see, thought “oh maybe I parked it somewhere else”, ran here and there, his hands inside his jeans pocket, feeling the set of keys which he knows belong to the car, heart hammering, finally letting himself realize the obvious – his car was carnapped. He had a sinking feeling that he will never see it again.

We never did. It did not help that the people at the government agency tasked to help victims of carnapping are an incompetent, insensitive bunch, ignoring us like this was nothing consequential, requiring a gazillion documents before the loss could be reported to national – wherever or whoever or whatever that is. We had never felt so helpless and so incensed, and….

Oh yeah — it was not insured.

We are still reeling and are still trying to let go. Memories are traitorous at this time, especially for the hubby. Whenever we see a truck similar in look and in color, we jump from our seats. He still tastes bitterness in his mouth and asks me frequently why life is unfair. I try to make him see the light but sometimes, it is difficult for me to answer the questions.

And we are only talking about a P400,000 car here.

Bad things can happen. Certain things, like death, will happen. That truth hit home, and hard. So we got life insurance, fire insurance, health insurance and I’m still trying to find out what other insurance there could be. However, my14-year-old car is no longer insurable. Some things, I guess, should be left to fate.

Now, for the lifelong lessons: we did not know that cars could be insured for up to 12 years; that when you have a hard time opening or closing your car (which happened to us but which we attributed to old age and rust), someone could have tampered with it (placed something inside so that the owner will not be able to close it) and that we should have taken it to the mechanic; that a car could be replaced; that it was a blessing for the hubby not to have witnessed the carnapping because if that happened, we could have lost something much more important than the car.

So now we hold on to our material things, but not too much, get safeguards and checks in place so we can sleep soundly at night, and try to extract whatever happiness we can with what material comforts we have. But mostly, we realize that we must invest in those that are far more important – each other and our daughter, in people and relationships, in great memories. While a car can be replaced, these, once lost, could be lost forever.

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