That kind of is most of it. Getting into my car after class, wearing my wushu uniform shirt*, I saw a couple of young men breaking into first one, and then a second car across the street. (Until I saw the second, I didn’t totally realize what was going on.) Car break-ins were a real problem in the area, and we’d been hit a few times that year**… Anyhow, so I got into my car, and called the police, detailing the situation as I watched them break into a third car. And then, while I’m still on my phone, and the police are on the way, they gather up their spoils and start heading out.

So the police ask if I can keep them in sight. Now, in retrospect, it seems like the obvious thing to do would have been to tail them on foot, though honestly, if I hadn’t just come from work, it’s fairly likely I didn’t have any other clothes with me. (Water bottle, training shoes, sword bag, covered with sweat. You have no idea how nostalgic this makes me…) Anyhow, for whatever reason, possibly at police suggestion, I followed them in my car. The police were going to be right there.

…for twenty minutes I looped around Seattle’s Chinatown, calling directions to the police car, while trying to be less than totally obvious. “Okay, they’re heading South on 6th…. Now, they’re turning West on Weller….” Twenty minutes might not sound like that long, but for a 6×6 block area? In a car? Oh, yeah. (Also, I was starving. I spent a while thinking that if I had been following them on foot I bet I could have nabbed a smoothie…)

Finally, they found them. It helped that they had everything they’d taken from the cars on their person. I was asked to casually drive by and confirm they had the right guys.

…if I’d had a jacket. Hell, if I’d had a button up shirt I could have thrown over my uniform tee, the ridiculousness would have gone down by an order of magnitude.

* And this is the important thing, because kids as young as five wore that shirt, so I didn’t want it getting bad associations.
** Hilariously, when the broke into my ex-husband’s extremely messy car, they not only left all his computer equipment, but all of his weapons. I imagine that excavation. “…and here’s… a third sword. …And a short staff. And… a chain whip. Holy crap, do you think that’s him coming up the street?” He lost a roll of quarters. I never lost anything, but I never left anything of value in my car. Of course, I also drove a soft-top jeep through a lot of this.

Thank you. And yeah 20 minutes seems like a really long time to be circling around in an awkward and stressful situation.