Over the past few months I’ve been getting a life lesson in the world of bank repossessions and collections. My best friend is a collections officer at our small hometown bank. With the decline of the economy her job has exploded nearly overnight. A normal trend for her used to consist of doing around fifteen vehicle repossessions in a year, she’s now doing around fifteen a month. It’s a sad fact. People are losing their paychecks and not being able to keep food on the table, much less make their car payments. With a lot of these people, the economy truly has been their demise and the situation is totally out of their control. For them, my heart breaks.
And then there are the ones that I don’t feel a bit sorry for.
I don’t know the real name of the girl in this story so we’re going to call her Lisa. Lisa, as in Angelina Jolie’s character in Girl Interrupted. The real-life Lisa in this story should be committed and subjected to electroshock therapy. Or at least be put in jail for a very long time on a charge of Stupid in the First Degree.
Lisa’s parents financed a brand-spanking-new SUV for her. Lisa is 26. See, the story is already starting off bad. Does Lisa not have a job? Can she not, as an adult, finance her own car? Maybe Lisa’s parents should be in jail as well. I don’t know much about Lisa’s story other than she is a party girl that makes Tara Reid look like Laura Ingles. I imagine it’s hard to keep up with her bar tab and all the crystal meth AND be able to make the payments on the SUV. So, this is how her file wound up on my friend’s desk in the collections office.
In true Girls Gone Wild style, Lisa planned a drunken road trip with a half a dozen friends. They headed down the mountain and out of state to Nowhereville, SC. The least drunk of the bunch was selected to drive (because that’s the responsible thing to do) and the guy took out a row of mailboxes going about 90 mph. This however would not deter the party, so they drove on. After many more gallons of alcohol, Lisa lost a belligerent game of “Paper, Rock, Scissors” and was chosen to drive back home… in the rain. The SUV hydroplaned and wound up DOA on the side of the interstate. All of the passengers, who were too intoxicated to suffer in the crash climbed out of the vehicle.
Lisa has a light bulb moment. “Let’s set the car on fire, hitchhike home and claim it was stolen!”
So here’s what they do:
All of the girls strip off their panties and Lisa’s boyfriend shoves them down the gas tank. They light them on fire but nothing happens. So the gasoline-infused, Victoria’s Secret spring line is tossed on the driver’s seat and ignited. The SUV goes up in flames. The group makes it home and in the morning Lisa reports the car stolen.
Oddly enough, the police found this fishy. Hmm… wonder why? Finally, Lisa wrote all this out in a full-fledged confession at the police department.
Wouldn’t you love to be the judge at that hearing???
