My Loratadine was running low and I wanted to have more for my trip to Egypt. My usual source is one of the pharmacies at Kaiser, Woodland Hills, so I went there this morning. After making my purchase, when I returned to the garage my car was gone! I walked up and down the roadway and aisles to make sure I was at the same spot where I had left the car; I was sure I was. There was nothing to do but to make my first 911 call on my Droid.

As the police dispatcher took down my information she said they would have a helicopter check the area for my car. Within 5 minutes I heard the helicopter overhead and could see it as it scoured the area.

The dispatcher arranged for me to meet the uniformed officers she was sending outside the entrance to the Northside Pharmacy — I knew there were benches there.

As I walked toward the vehicle entrance everything looked basically as I remembered it had looked, when I originally went to the pharmacy, but when I neared the roadway I noticed the stairs on my right. I remembered I had climbed one flight of stairs to get to the level of the pharmacy entrance yet I was already on the pharmacy entrance level.  Ugh! A terrible feeling!

My best choice seemed to be to descend the stairs. When I had, and I stepped into the garage driveway I saw what looked like my car in the distance.  I began clicking my door opener, but I was too far.  As I got closer and continued clicking the tail lights turned on.

The LAPD dispatcher was very kind, only thanking me for calling back to say that my car had not been stolen after all. We didn’t get into who it might have been driving the car I thought was mine leaving the garage. She also assured me that my car was no longer listed as stolen and there was no chance I would be stopped by police.