Portland Woman’s Subaru Impreza Stolen by Accident, Apologetically Returned

When Portlandia sketches turn real.

byAaron Brown|
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When your car goes missing, it's easy to think the worst: that either you'll never see your car again, or you'll get a phone call from the police that it's been found charred to a crisp beneath a highway overpass in the middle of some industrial dystopia. But for one Subaru-owning Oregon woman, her stolen Impreza wound up making its way back to her complete with an apology—and $30 in cash.

After Erin Hatzi's husband saw that her red Subaru Impreza was no longer in their driveway on Tuesday evening, Hatzi took to Facebook to upload images from their security system that showed the person who they suspected of taking the car. What the couple didn't know at the time, however, was that the theft had been a huge misunderstanding.

The red Impreza, it turns out, had been taken by someone who had instructions to pick up a different red Subaru in the same neighborhood as a favor for a friend. Once the would-be thief realized her error, she returned the car with a sorrowful note—and $30, for both gas and the misunderstanding.

Police confronted the woman who took the car when she arrived at Hatzi's driveway attempting to return it Wednesday evening, The Oregonian reports. One the woman explained the mishap to the police, everything was cleared up.

Police told Hatzi that the woman was able to take the car because some older Subaru keys are interchangeable. (Which, to us, sounds utterly terrifying, but that's neither here nor there.)

Hatzi told The Oregonian that her insurance agent had to take time to laugh when she called the company to close her claim. "I'm not entirely sure where the car spent the evening but it came back with a nice note and a weird story," she said. "My car had a little adventure," Hatzi told The Oregonian.

If there's one part of America where an almost-crime like this would happen, it's undoubtedly the Pacific Northwest. Out there, it's Subarus, Subarus, and more Subarus—and a ton of polite drivers.

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