It may seem obvious, but with a two car driveway and two parental cars, I've been parking my car in the street. I live in a pretty good neighborhood in Temple Terrace, but the whole area surrounding Temple Terrace is going downhill, so I guess I should expect this sort of thing.

Last night I was up at 4:30 after a few sleepless hours tossing in bed. I had my window open with a view of the street that forms the access side of my block, which is a circle. Glancing out the window, I saw a beater white early-90's sedan slowly drive by, but I paid it little attention and got back to my posting. About ten minutes later I saw light in the corner of my eye and looked out to see the car making another slow pass. This seemed strange, but the car took a corner and was out of sight before I could do anything about it.

Ten minutes later, the car slowly pulled around the corner about 300 feet away. This time he rolled down my street and seemed to be coming to a stop in the general vicinity of my car, which was just out of my eyesight from my side window, in front of my house. I got up and rushed to the front door, opened it slowly and tried to step outside without being seen. The white car was slowly creeping up to the backside of my car, but even though I was on a dark porch the driver saw me and suddenly threw it in reverse, backed up quickly to the entrace road and backed around the corner (so I couldn't see his plates, I assume) and took off back through the intersection going the other way. I'm pretty sure I saw somebody hanging out the passenger window with a flashlight or something, probably checking the interior of cars along the road. I should have called the cops, but I was tired and I just went back inside.

I was worried that he would come back, so tonight I parked my car at the top of my driveway in front of my dad's car, pulled the faceplate and strategically placed a broken rake and other crap in the most likely approach to my car so that just in case he comes back, he'll at least trip and bonk his head on my car before stealing my shit.