GOLD COAST — Despite it being previously parked right outside of his high-rise apartment, area tech worker Cody Michael Jacobs, 29, has yet to notice that his 2018 Toyota Corolla has been missing for over three months.
Jacobs, who, despite his car at most once per month before the pandemic, said he values the great utility that comes with owning a car in Chicago.
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“I love having my car parked right outside for when I need to run a quick errand,” said Jacobs, who hasn’t left his apartment in six months except to receive daily deliveries from Grubhub and Amazon. “And my Corolla is sick. I call it ‘The Beast’ because it’s such a beast.”
The Beast, which had been safely sitting outside his apartment and taking up two parking spaces for over a year, was stolen by car thieves back in November, who took it on a joyride for two blocks and deposited it across the street from a Panera, where it’s now barely visible beneath several full layers of parking tickets.
“The dope thing is I have one of the few free parking spaces on the block, so I can’t risk moving it,” continued Jacobs. “Especially since we've been getting all this snow, I don’t want to make a run to the store and have someone else call dibs. Parking one block over would literally ruin my life.”
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Jacobs admits that while he hasn’t been to an actual store in over 6 months, the utility of having a car is simply too good to give up.
“Sure I’ve thought about selling it, but for me the car represents freedom. Not financial freedom, the monthly payments are killing me. And not necessarily any kind of emotional freedom because driving in the city gives me terrible anxiety,” said Jacobs. “But it's just that it’s important to own a car, okay? Someday I might want to get out of the city and start another life where I’ll need a car. I guess I could always just buy one at that point instead of owning it now though. Hey why are you asking me all these questions about my car?”
At press time, this Chicago Genius reporter assured Jacobs that we were just doing a piece on how cool cars are and he said that was epic, at which point we left the apartment and got into our news van which was sitting in a super convenient sweet free parking spot right out front.
