“Well, that’s how we found your car,” the officer said. “LoJack. It tracks the vehicle, and we found it parked in a cul-de-sac.”

“You found it?” I was dumbfounded. “What kind of shape is it in?”

“A little dent on the passenger side in the back. Otherwise, perfect.”

The dent. Yes, that’s it!

By any measure, this was good luck.

“Can I come get it?”

“We impounded it.”

They impounded it? Did it do something wrong?

“It’ll cost about a hundred bucks,” the officer said.

“A hundred bucks? To get my stolen car back?”

Bad luck? Or just weirdness?

Later that night, my wife and I drove into the nether reaches of our town, out into a twilight zone of propane stores and taxidermy shops, where, behind a barbed-wire fence in a field of smashed cars, was our baby.

It had a few crumpled up potato chip bags and some soda pop cans and it smelled like somebody had left a dead body in it. Otherwise, it was no worse for wear.

My wife got in and turned the key. It started right up.

So it cost a hundred bucks. So we killed half an evening driving halfway to who knows where to retrieve the car. So it smelled like Jimmy Hoffa.

I think you could call us lucky.