Is this how my catalytic convertor saga ends?

I’m really excited for today’s story. It’s literally been a year in the making!

But before we get to the story, I need to say thank you to the newest paid subscribers at Situation Normal. A big shout out to Jesse E., who taught me a lot about writing and to how think critically about film when I was a high school student. Thank you, Jesse! Also, a big thank you to Hailmarysandale! I don’t know Hailmarysandale, but they made the right choice.

Last July, thieves stole my catalytic convertor.¹ Due to a supply chain clusterfuck, I had to wait months for a replacement. While I waited, I couldn’t operate my car legally, but my mechanic had a workaround. I became a straight pipe scofflaw.² After four months of straight pipe scofflaw living, my new catalytic convertor arrived at the end of October. Forty-eight hours later, thieves stole my catalytic convertor again, but I didn’t write about the second theft until December.³ The second time around, the supply chain clusterfuck was even worse. Naturally, I returned to my straight pipe scofflaw ways.⁴ Finally, this June, I got a call from my mechanic. My replacement catalytic converter, the one ordered to replace the first replacement, had arrived! But a question remained: what was I going to do about my car?

Over the past year, I thought about that question a lot. I asked my friends what they would do. I asked my mechanic what he would do. I even put that question to the Situation Normal community. I had three possible plans.

Plan #1: Get a better parking spot

The best defense against catalytic convertor theft is to park your car in a safe space, like a garage, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Implicit in that advice is a dispiriting acknowledgement: the LAPD can’t stop individual catalytic convertor thieves, and it hasn’t tried to take down, or even marginally disrupt, the crime syndicates that make this crime so common. But fear not, citizens of Los Angeles! Where your tax dollars have failed, your housing dollars will succeed—assuming you have a garage.

We have a garage, but it only fits one car. We already park Christina’s electric car in the garage to charge it there. In our case, finding a safer place to park would mean finding a new place to live.

Plan #2: Sell & ride!

I could sell my Prius and live the Los Angeles dream of a one-car household. That seemed promising, especially to the Situation Normal community, because it would result in more Lyft driver stories.⁵ But after the Situation Normal finance team informed me that “Lyft ain’t cheap,” I shelved that plan.

Plan #3: Sell & buy

I could sell my 2015 Prius and get a new car—one with a catalytic convertor that’s harder to steal. This plan seemed like the most practical choice, but I hated it. Here’s why: we paid off the Prius in 2020, the mileage was still low, and Toyota has a reputation for building cars that last decades. Our plan was to ride the Prius to the end of the line, and while I hadn’t put an end date on the car, it wasn’t unreasonable to shoot for the early 2030s.

Decision time

I didn’t like any of these plans. But with catalytic converter number three installed in my car, and my car temporarily parked inside a locked garage, while Christina’s car slowly lost power in the driveway, I knew I needed to take action pronto.

Maybe that’s why procrastinated. I was in no rush to choose between three shitty plans. But speaking of Rush, the philosophy collective masquerading as a metal band, I knew this: if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Also, Christina urged me to get my ass in gear.

“Babe,” she said, “Get your ass in gear.”

“Fuck it,” I said. “I’m selling.”

That decision eliminated shitty plan number one, but technically shitty plans two and three were still viable. My plan was to live the single-car life until it got annoying, unbearable, or infeasible. At that point, I’d convert shitty plan number two into shitty plan number three, thus delaying a bad choice as long as possible. Take that, Rush!

Or, if you use Substack Notes, hit that “Restack” button🙏

Selling ain’t easy

The easiest way to sell a car is to use a website called Carvana. According to company legend, the founder of Carvana named his company as an homage to his former band, Nirvana. The same legend explains that the founder of Carvana is Dave Grohl. But that’s the legend. The truth is this: the tech bros who sought to disrupt the used car market hired a branding agency that created an obvious portmanteau by merging “car” with “nirvana” to trick consumers into believing that buying and selling used cars on Carvana is a heavenly experience.

As promised, it only took me “a few minutes” to get an offer. I thought the offer was OK, so I accepted it. Carvana told me we were good for now. But a few days later, Carvana informed me that I needed to renew the registration on my car before I could sell it. I pointed out that the 2022 registration would still be valid when they took possession of the car, but they didn’t care. To sell my car, I needed to renew the registration, but to renew the registration I needed to get a smog check.

The Ohana plan

I asked Google Maps to lead me to the smog shop closest to our house. That’s where I met Jon, the man who changed everything.

Jon runs a classic mom & pop garage. Jon plays the role of pop. He’s also the mechanic. Jon’s pregnant wife plays mom and does the books.

While Jon ran the smog check on my car, we got to talking about my situation.

“After this, I’m going to register the car, then sell it,” I told Jon.

“Sell it? It’s a great car!”

“Yeah, the thieves think so too. I’ve been hit twice.”

Jon grimaced.

“I’m not political,” he said. “I say love everyone, help everyone, but if you fuck with my shit, or you fuck with my neighbor’s shit, or you fuck with anyone’s shit, I will fuck you up.”

Jon sounded like the Hawaiian Charles Bronson to me, but I didn’t have a chance to tell him that. Despite his claim to be apolitical, Jon was too busy talking politics. As far as I could tell, Jon was a centrist reactionary who loathed left-wing reactionaries and right-wing reactionaries.

“These defund the police dipshits—who are they gonna call when some motherfucker with a Glock and crowbar breaks into their house to steal their shit, or hurt their family? Shit goes down, you call the cops. Everyone knows this. But don’t get me started on these blue lives matter, law & order assholes. They want to pretend like the cops can’t ever be wrong. Yeah right. The cops are wrong when they kill innocent people—period. But the cops are also wrong about stopping catalytic convertor theft. This is organized crime, brother. At this scale, it’s obvious. The LAPD needs to step the fuck up. Investigate! Go under cover, find the buyers, roll up their operations.”

I liked the cut of Jon’s jib. His rant spoke to a feeling I haven’t been able to shake recently. We’ve politicized everything, including public safety, but what has it gotten us? Catalytic converter thefts plague Los Angeles, but the political conversation is so detached from reality that only a fool would believe that the Left or the Right has a workable solution here.

“What you need to do is get yourself a gun,” Jon said.

“I’m not a gun guy.”

Jon glanced at my Prius. Then he gave me a knowing look.

“Yeah, I should’ve guessed you were a hippie. That’s OK, brother, nobody’s perfect. Here’s what you do. Get a shotgun, but don’t get any shells.”

A shotgun without shells felt like ordering an omelet without eggs. Also, an image flashed in my mind. I was standing in our yard, holding an unloaded shotgun. I looked like the Jewish Charles Bronson. But then the bad guys pointed their loaded guns at me, and I had to explain that my gun was just a prop. I didn’t let my imagination complete the ill-advised vigilante fantasy because I know that scenes like that don’t end well in real life.

“Get yourself a Ring doorbell,” Jon continued. “You hear something outside, you crank up the volume, tell them you’re armed. Then you rack that shotgun. Trust me: the sound of racking a shotgun will pucker their assholes.”

Jon’s workaround sounded plausible. I liked the idea of puckering a thief’s asshole. But did I really need an unloaded shotgun to pull off the ruse? Couldn’t I just use a pre-recorded sound effect? Or better yet, hire Michael Winslow to watch over my catalytic convertor?

But there was another problem with Jon’s workaround. It takes less than ninety seconds for a thief to steal a catalytic convertor from a Prius, and the thieves always work in the middle of the night. If Michael Winslow wasn’t available, my only hope would be to purchase an unloaded shotgun and stay up all night to guard my Prius. I explained this to Jon, minus the Michael Winslow cameo.

“Get a shield,” Jon said.

A shield? The mechanic who replaced my two stolen catalytic convertors had told me about the shield. Several Situation Normal readers had also suggested the shield.

A shield is a metal plate bolted onto the undercarriage of your car. It’s not guaranteed to stop a catalytic convertor thief, but it will make their job harder. Smart thieves, the conventional wisdom goes, will skip a car with a shield. Dumb thieves, even the police admit, might need an extra ten minutes to pull off a job that should take less than two minutes. But really dumb thieves, according to Jon, will cut the bolts to the shield and get crushed by to death by the weight of a huge sheet of metal crashing on their head.

“I thought about getting a shield the first time,” I told Jon. “But the thieves stole my catalytic convertor before I could do that.”

“What about now? I got a shield in the shop, if you want me to install it. You don’t have to sell your car.”

I liked the sound of keeping my car. I liked the sound of Jon’s confidence too. But I was still worried.

“I dunno,” I said. “It took me four months to get a new one the first time, then almost eight months the second time around. What happens if they cut through the shield? It could take me a year to get a new catalytic convertor the way things are going.”

“Yeah, the supply chain is fucked, and it’s going to get worse the longer this crime wave goes on.”

“That’s why I’m selling. I hate to say it, but the thieves won.”

“Fuck that,” Jon said. “Come with me, brother. I got you.”

I followed Jon inside the shop, past a disassembled Honda Civic, past a cart loaded with tools, past a pile of miscellaneous parts. At the back of the shop, Jon pointed to a shelf.

“I’ve got three catalytic convertors that fit your car.”

“Are you serious? I called around for months looking for that part. Nobody had them. Two Toyota dealerships told me the waiting list had hundreds of people on it.”

“That’s true,” Jon said. “I’ve got a dozen more on backorder. Everyone does. But I don’t make my supply available to anyone off the street. Ohana only. You know what Ohana means, right?”

“Yeah, it’s Hawaiian for family.”

“Right! My customers are family. I can’t guarantee that they won’t try to steal your cat, and I can’t guarantee the shield will work. But I can promise you that I’ve got a cat in reserve if they jack you again. I got you, brother.”

I hadn’t realized it, but I’d been waiting a year for someone—anyone—to say, I got you. It’s not that I expected someone to solve my problems. I’ve read enough woo-woo self-help articles on the internet to know that nobody is coming to save me. And even before the internet, my father used to say, “that’s life in the big city.” That was Dad’s version of the wildly popular “shit happens” sentiment.

I wasn’t bothered by the fact that nobody was coming to save me, or that I was living life in the big city, or that shit had indeed happened (twice!). No, what bothered me was this awful sinking feeling that by selling my car I was letting the bad guys win. That kind of defeatism is the right tone for a Leonard Cohen song, but it’s a lousy way to live your life.

“Honestly,” I said with a sigh, “I was feeling pretty dejected about all this.”

I told Jon about my sinking feeling that selling my car was letting the bad guys win. Jon listened with patience and compassion. He heard my frustrations with ideologues who couldn’t find reality with a map. He heard my deepest fears for the city I love. He heard my greatest hopes for a world where, as Jon put it, we can love and help everyone. And after I was done telling Jon how I felt, I asked him to install the shield.

“I got you, brother. You’re on the Ohana plan now.”

Stick around and chat!

You know the drill. I’ve got questions, you’ve got answers.

1. Is this really the end of my catalytic convertor drama? Be honest, unless you think this shit will continue. In that case, please lie to me.

2. Have you ever faced a decision where all the options sucked? What did you do? Bonus points if you stuck it to Rush by choosing not to decide.

3. How much do think Michael Winslow would charge to provide home security, or should I look for a free Michael Winslow AI?

4. I’m trying to convince Jon to run for city council. I think his platform should be: Unloaded Guns & Ohana for Los Angeles. Thoughts?

5. Everyone knows Dave Grohl didn’t found Carvana, but what if everyone’s wrong? Share Dave Grohl’s secret tech bro history, if you dare.

Want more slice of life humor?

I wrote a book of stories about my experiences with Lyft drivers. Here’s what situation normie Bill Coffin had to say about Ride / Share:

In a slim volume you can easily read in a single sitting, Michael Estrin shares a sequence of stories all taken from his conversation with rideshare drivers. They range from the bizarre to the hilarious to the profound and back again, with each being deeply compelling in their own way. Estrin captures perfectly the highs and lows of conversation, and brings to light the opportunities we all have to make a human connection during those times when we tend to tune out and shut off. There are stories everywhere. All we have to do is open ourselves to them. Estrin has done that here, and we're all richer for it.

In the mood for a funny crime story?

As my mechanic Jon says, I got you! Here’s what situation normie Betsy Brazy had to say about Not Safe for Work:

NSFW is the story of a freelance reporter who finally lands a full-time gig with a trade magazine and stumbles across a murder mystery he can’t help but solve. The characters, including the author, are larger-than-life. There’s threats by a good ole boy cop, many puns and wisecracks, and I truly couldn’t guess whodunnit. I held back a star because it felt like the novel was non-stop and needed prose for the reader to stop and ponder a bit before continuing. Oh, and spoiler, the setting is the San Fernando Valley porn industry in Southern California. However, having worked in other media outlets, I promise that there are plenty of threats, stupidity, exploitation of reporters and youth plus backstabbing in all other US media. Keep writing, Michael!

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