Two for the Price of One

Picture it: Southeastern Expressway 6PM, Wednesday, somewhere near exit 12.

My cell phone rings and it's my brother. Wait, first some background info:

Adam and I and my brother are kind of tag team taking care of the dog while my parents are in South Africa for a few weeks. So on Mondays and Wednesdays Adam goes to my parents' after work to walk and feed him, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I do, and on Fridays/the weekend Peter usually handles it.

Ok so back to the story. The phone rings and it's Peter

"What time did Adam walk the dog today?" he asks

"Uh, not sure. Probably around 4ish?"

"Do you know if when he walked the dog, there was a car in the backyard?"

"What!? A car"

"Yeah there's a car parked in the backyard"

"What!?"

Now this is not an every day occurance at our house. IN fact it has never happened. So we were both a little disturbed.

"What do you think its doing there?" I asked, knowing the obvious answer (Hello, dead body in the trunk. I watch Law and Order. I know what goes on).

"I don't know a stolen car someone ditched?"

"Why would they ditch the car in someones backYARD? I thought you would ditch a car some place it wouldnt be seen right away".

While we debated the finer points of thieves/murderers logic, I decided to call Adam and see if by chance he had seen anything when he was there feeding the dog. When I called him he informed me that while there was not a car in the backyard, there had been tire tracks leading from the front yard to the back yard and the yard was all kinds of ripped up. But no car. And furthermore if I ever checked my voicemail I would know this (true).

So I call my brother back, at this point heading over there instead of back to my apartment and relay to him this new info. Not only was a car parked there now but it had been making trips for some reason to and from the back yard. Curiouser and curiouser!

At this point a diagram might be helpful.



As you may recal Wednesday was really rainy and gross and as such this car and it's several trips had ripped up the side yard and much of the backyard. Peter told me he had called the police and they were going to send someone down but they weren't that surprised or concerned about it.

Clearly they don't watch Law and Order as much as I do.

In any case I told Peter that whoever's car that was had been back and forth a few times and Adam had seen the tracks. Nothing was missing from the house though. What the heck is going on?

We ended the conversation and I continued my drive to my parents' house. When I was almost there Peter called me "A tow truck just came and I called the police back and told them not to come...it was the PAINTER'S CAR".

My parents are having the house painted while they are gone and apparently he decided that because it was raining he didnt want to carry his paint buckets to the back yard, he wanted to drive them there by driving through the side yard and backyard instead of down the driveway (???)

I don't know how a mind works that decides that driving and tearing up the lawn of someone you work for is a good idea.

So apparently the whole abandoned car thing happened because on one of his trips out back the car got STUCK in the lawn and he attempted to dig it out with a shovel several times before leaving to call a tow truck.

Again. ???????

It doesn't make any sense to me at all. And yet to him it made perfect sense. I find this both amusing and a little scary. He did go back and sod over the ruined lawn and I am sure come spring it will be fine but in the meantime it makes a good story!