The Luddite car stereo thief strikes again

early every time I get in the car, my hand reaches for the buttons before my mind can catch up and think, "Oh no, it's not there anymore!" Sometimes, just minutes after falling down the rabbit hole, I end up there again, subconsciously reaching out to push a button before I realize nothing is there.

I need my fix of This American Life, Says You, The Vinyl Cafe, A Prairie Home Companion and The Splendid Table. Fast. NPR, you complete me.

A few days ago, I walked out to my car in the morning and found it unlocked. The stereo was missing, wires hanging, glove box cover dangling open and contents strewn about, miscellanea gone. The air and heater controls had been dismantled and perhaps destroyed, the bulb to the interior light smashed. Upon replacing the bulb, I discovered something else had been broken in the fixture when the thief/thieves decided to take out the light. It remains to be seen what it will take to fix it.

I was nearly 100% certain I had locked the door the night before, but there it was. Strangely, two days before, I had also found the car unlocked in the morning and was pretty sure I had locked it then. Several items looked out of place, just not quite where I had remembered them. However, nothing seemed to be missing, so I didn't give it a second thought, other than being more vigilant about locking the doors. Until I discovered the theft.

fter paying the deductible, I will end up with a working facsimile of my stereo, but it will lack some of the functions of the late lamented model, (which even most Luddites could embrace). That stereo had a foot in two electronic decades at the time of its purchase, able to play both cds and cassettes, yet still capable of producing decent sound. Even so, it was clearly anachronistic the day it left the factory. Its most cutting edge gadgetry was already past-its-prime, looking over a virtual shoulder at several new generations of technology already nipping on its heels.

Today's newest car audio gadgetry dump the cd format for sds. Who wants a car stereo when you can have an in-car digital media receiver? You may now watch videos on a 3-in. screen in your car audio/visual unit. They take usb and sd memory cards, have integrated Bluetooth and microphone, and play mp3s, wma and iTunes music files. Whoa, that hurts my brain.

The deck I had is next-to-impossible to replace, except for with another second-hand unit. (The one new model available that plays both cassettes and cds doesn't fit my car). Ergo, likely the reason it was taken. A fellow human who has likewise missed out on the mp3 revolution went searching for a deck to play their own highly prized cassettes and cds. That night, they found mine, sitting in my driveway, ensconced in a decidedly uncool Ford Escort.

Watch out if you have an eight-track player installed in your car.