Mount Holly Lantern Day Parade

Lantern Parade

With all the drama surrounding the theft of my rental car (and there are zero updates there), I forgot to post about my community's entry in the 7th Annual Mount Holly Lantern Day Parade. This was the fourth year that Imagery has entered the parade (our community was only formed in 2019).

The theme was "The Fantastical World of Flight", and the options of what to build were endless. Our design team takes into account the fact that we have many people in the neighborhood who, while they may never help in the building process, want to walk with us in the parade. So obviously we would not choose to build one large lantern, like Dumbo for example. We like to have a number of lanterns in our entry. The second consideration is that we want to appeal to the kids, as there are many of them along the parade route. For those reasons we decided to go with Santa and his reindeer.

We constructed a six foot long sleigh for Santa, and built his nine reindeer, each of whom was five feet long. We added ten twelve inch square gift boxes, four lollipops and four candy canes. All of these were constructed of wire, lit with fairy lights, then covered with two layers of tissue paper. We also have a lit banner with our name - Imagery - in from of our entry. We had 32 people in our unit, including two of our own parade marshalls to keep people in line and five of the Singing Elves from our community. 

We had requested to be last in the parade, and our wish was granted. What better way to end any parade than with Santa? We were greeted with many claps and cheers, as well as spontaneous renditions of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" along the parade route. And we won First Place in the "Group" category for the fourth year in a row! 

Imagery Lantern Parade entry

Next year's theme is "Into the Deep Blue Sea". We have our thinking caps on...

Stolen Rental Car Part Four

A couple of miracles occurred today with regards to the stolen rental car. I contacted the police department again and left a message for my responding police officer to give me a call regarding the recovered rental car. He actually returned my call, and seemed puzzled as to why I wanted to speak to him. He did not realize the car had been located, but when he looked at the police report he could see that it had been found by the city police and that I had been contacted. I asked him if the car had made it to their lot, and he said no. He ended up calling their towing vendor, and they said they had no record of my car. He then found out that the car was still in the lot used by St. Louis city police. He said they have no intentions of taking possession of the car to dust for fingerprints as they have more serious crimes to attend to than a stolen car. This statement confirms my suspicions on how my case has been treated from the beginning. At least I know where I stand with this.

The second miracle is that when I called this same police department and asked for records, I actually got a live person and not the recording to leave a message as I had the previous five times I have called. The lady checked into my case, said the record was ready and could be released, but that I had to go to her city's website and fill out a form and pay $10. Then she can email me the report. I have done that, so now I wait for the email.

Since I was on a positive roll, I again called Budget's customer service number to request a copy of my rental agreement - for the fourth or fifth time. This representative asked how close I was to the rental office so I could just go in there and get a copy. I explained that I am in North Carolina and the office is in St. Louis. He then said I was talking to reservations and not customer service, which is odd because it is the same number I called all the other times when I spoke to customer service reps. He said he would transfer me, but after fifteen minutes on hold, I hung up. I went ahead and filled out a form online to try to get a copy of my agreement, and I attached a copy of my confirmation email showing that I had indeed rented the car. I just got an email back from them stating that since I made the reservation online, no signature is required so they cannot provide me with a signed agreement. I need the signed agreement for the insurance claim. What a trick bag I am in!

Stolen Rental Car Part Three

Budget Fastbreak

With Budget I am a Fastbreak member, and have been for many years. I reserve my car online and either go to a special line when I pick the car up or am told through the app where to get my car and bypass a line altogether. When I rented a car from them in Des Moines earlier in September, I checked in at a desk in the airport but was given no paperwork. She just went from my confirmation number.

In St. Louis I was directed to a spot in the Budget lot, but no car was there so we had to go inside the building. Again, I gave the clerk my confirmation number and she checked my drivers license before telling me which Avis spot to go to. When we left the parking lot, a woman scanned our transponder and checked my drivers license to make sure it matched their records. Again, I was given no paperwork and I didn't think anything of it.

When I logged into my Budget account at home, mysteriously only the Des Moines rental shows up. Not the St. Louis rental. I called customer service to request a copy of my rental agreement, and the gal apologized that it hadn't been emailed to me following my rental. She requested my reservation number, which I gave her, confirmed my email address and said I would have it within four hours. Two days later it had not arrived. I called customer service again, and a different gal said she didn't see a copy of my agreement, and that she would have to request it from the local (St. Louis) office. She said that would take 7-10 business days, and then it would be emailed to me. 

Two weeks later I still don't have it, so I called again. This time the gal said that it looked like I had never signed a rental agreement, and that I would have to contact the St. Louis office myself. She provided me with a phone number, which actually took me to the airport itself and not Budget. The man who answered kindly gave me the Budget number. When you call that number, you get a series of choices and none of them takes you to a live person. Most of them dump you back into the main Budget customer service center. I'm at a loss as to what to do with them at this point.

In the meantime I have called the police department records center five times, never getting a live person but only a recording. Five times I have requested the police report for my stolen car, explaining that I need if for filing a claim on the car. I have received no callbacks.

Very early in the morning on Friday, October 25th I received a phone message from a police officer in the district where the car had been stolen, telling me that a City of St. Louis police officer had found my rental car. The message gave me the officer's name and told me to call the city police. A phone number would have been helpful to me. After muddling my way through the various phone options, I left a message last Friday but did not hear back from him.

The city police officer works nights, so I had to figure out when I could call that he would be there. So on Tuesday I called at 5:30 CST and was able to talk to him. He said that a male from Avis/Budget saw that their stolen car was pinging at a certain address, and asked that they try to locate the car. The officer responded and found the car where they said it was pinging. He told me the car did not appear to be damaged, and the dash looked okay though he didn't have a key to get into it. He saw a female driver's license on the floor of the back seat, but couldn't tell if it was mine. This is interesting because a woman (maybe) reached out to me through Facebook Messenger to tell me that her grandson had found my driver's license, and that she has it in her possession. She wanted to talk to me. I checked out her Facebook profile, and things seemed a little sketchy to me so I didn't talk to her. If my license is really in the car still, she was obviously on a fishing expedition.

The city cop also said the Florida plate had been switched out to one from Missouri. They took the car to their impound lot as the other police department said they would come and get it so they could process it for fingerprints. As of the time he and I talked, the car was still in the city lot. 

I left a message for the original responding officer to call me with an update on the case since the car has been recovered. I am curious to know if any of my other personal items are in the trunk. I'm hoping he will call me back, and that he can assist me in being able to get a copy of their police report.