Dad’s campaign against car thieves

Dad always leaned towards the paranoid and suspicious side, long before dementia pushed these tendencies to an unhealthy level. The other day, I saw an older, run-down car with The Club on it and immediately thought of my dad.

I don’t even remember there being a rash of car break-ins in our neighborhood. One day, Dad appeared home with a bright red device called The Club. He was dead-set on keeping thieves away from our old piece of junk car. I was a pre-teen and thought the ugly device was unnecessary. Who would want our old car? In fact, I was hoping someone would steal it, so Dad would be forced to get another car.

Photo credit: AutoBarn.net

Well, our car was never broken into, so I guess The Club worked in that sense. Unfortunately, we ended up spending a lot of time locking ourselves out of the car as well. I don’t know if it was user error or a faulty device, but we had a heck of a time getting the thing off sometimes. This would send Dad into a cursing-under-his-breath fit, with my Mom scolding him for using that kind of language. Finally, Dad became so frustrated with the thing that he stopped locking it. He hoped the appearance of the device alone would keep thieves away.

Too bad we can’t secure the mind from the memory thieves as well as we can protect our car from robbers.