Sunday, January 14, 2007

the police incident

this is the disturbing incident that i was referring to in a previous post.

a few days ago i was working on a group project with my colleagues every day for more than a week. we used to stay at the girl's house from 8:00 am to around 1:00 am every night with the exeption of the last night where we spent the whole night there.

when i arrived there in the morning i found the perfect parking spot...under a tree and right infront of her house...and everyone knows how hard it is to find a parking space in heliopolis.

after a long and hectic day, i finished work at around 1:30 am... when i reached my car i found that some dude has parked his car next to mine (raken saff tany) blocking the way for me to get out...and he had the handbrakes pulled..

what really pissed me off is the way he parked his car...it wasn't parallel to mine, it was rather slanted towards the front end of my car completely ruling out any chance of me squeezing my way out.

then i realized he had broken my left mirror.

i originally thought there were 2 possible reasons for him to act this way:
1- he was pissed because i took his spot even though there were no signs showing that it belonged to him...and he wanted me to suffer for that.

2- he/she don't know how to park the car in the first place...they suck at driving and they don't know that when ur parking in the second row you leave the handbrakes down so that ur car could be pushed.. and they don't have the manners of leaving me a note apologizing for the broken mirror.

i was more convinced that it was reason 1.

i live in the 6th of October city..more than an hour away from heliopolis and taking a cab to home would cost too much and besides i didn't want to leave that guy without any punishment for what he did to me.

i started asking around for the owner of the car and no one knew who it was...then a man in a nearby shop told me that there was a 60% chance that it was the guy living in the first floor of the building in front of me.

i wasn't ready to go knocking on strange people's doors in the middle of the night asking for something they might have done..if i was sure it was him i would've done it instantly but i personally wouldn't want to be woken up in the middle of the night for something i had nothing to do with..

i then decided to call my cousin who happens to work for the police and i asked him if i filed a complaint (3amalt ma7dar) at the police station, would they send a tow truck to remove the car....he replied that it's a possibility.

so i took a taxi to the nearest police station and the minute you set foot there you find all these nosy men that demand to know what your complain is about before leading you to the way of the officer...really pisses me off..i didn't want to satisfy their curiousity so i just told them my cell phone got stolen.

after finally reaching the officer i told him what the real story was and i added that all i cared about was to go home and rest. the officer said "sure thing, we'll just finish up some paper work, ask you some questions, then see what we could do about it"...he then pulled out a pen and paper and began the "who, what, when, where, and why" questions...he then asked me this incredibly stupid question: "is the car with you now, outside the station?" and my face immediately turned all red and i could feel a little smoke coming out of my ears.

anyways...after signing on the paper he went inside the room for a few minutes and came back telling me that he's sorry there's no one with the authority to send someone and go make a report about the incident now ( ya3mel mo3ayna) ...

"the head officer is at home and i can't give that order myself"
"so what am i supposed to do now?"
"come back in the morning, we'll be more than willing to help"
"in the morning the guy is gonna be gone without being punished...and how am i supposed to go home now??"
"no we already have the guy's car number, we'll bring him here and interrogate him"
"ofcourse he'll deny all this and there's nothing to prove what i'm saying"
"i'm sorry, i feel sympathy for you but i really can't do anything about it"

i then called my cousin again and told him what happened...he asked to talk to the officer.
they chatted for around 5 minutes on the phone and then the officer immediately sent a small police guy to go make the report...

"why didn't you say that (A) is your cousin from the beginning?? da 7abeeby men zaman!!"

i thanked him anyways (but i really felt like beating him up) for his efforts, got on the motorcycle with the police dude (yes first time on a motorcycle in my life...kinda fun actually, but freezing) and when we finally got to the "crime" scene i found my cousin there waiting for me..

ofcourse the police guy filed a report that was very much in my favour just because my cousin was there...and after that we started thinking of what to do with the other guy's car since unfortunately there are no tow trucks available in the middle of the night.

my cousin suggested we brake his mirrors and front glass because he caused me financial damage too...i was surprisingly in a less aggressive mood than him, despite all that's happened..

we ended up dragging the car and blocking the road with it so that no other cars could pass through..the next morning at 7:00 am i called the police department and told them that a car was blocking the road and i can't get to work...two hours later they came and took it.

i didn't get to meet the guy unfortunately, i wanted to find out the real reasons behind his stupid act.