My stomach had twinges of nervousness on Sunday morning. It was a perfect day and I couldn't wait to start cycling. Everything was packed and I was ready to hit the road for San Francisco. But first, Sunday brunch had to be eaten. Despite the butterflies I managed to cram down a "Seattle to Portland" omelette at Dish cafe. Tony noticed that our bill was $36.66. "The sign of the beast," he joked. "And today's the 13th." I added. "We're going to have bad luck."
Before heading out I had to bike back to my boat to pick up some things I'd forgotten like sunscreen, a headlamp, and bugspray. It was noon already by the time I was ready to leave. But wait, I hadn't actually changed the clock on my boat for daylight savings time. It wasn't noon - it was 1pm already. That's when I suggested that both of us drive to Centralia and camp there. That way I could wake up and bike to Portland the next day and Tony could drive back and go to work. Tony was down. I felt relieved. For some reason, I didn't feel ready to bike to Portland by myself. We biked to his apartment to get his car. He was just ahead of me, and I saw him, standing with his bike, in the shadow of the garage. His face was blank. I biked up next to him and looked at what he was looking at.
His car was gone.
Just gone. We stared at the space for a while, as if staring at the space would bring his car back. Then Tony ran upstairs to call the police. We waited for three hours for them. Meanwhile, we tried every ride sharing service we could think of. I realized that I have never received my Zipcar card in the mail, and Tony's membership had lapsed and had to be renewed. That was out. We tried relay ride, a really cool carsharing service, but no success there either.
The police man showed up and told us that the car would certainly be recovered. He said it was a question of when, not if.
It was 5pm. We gave up on our camping plans, and I decided to start my trip on Monday instead of unlucky Sunday.