A plaintive e-mail was sent out over the Tacoma ListServe on New Year’s Eve, requesting the return of Lola to her family.  Lola was stolen from the parking lot at Trader Joe’s on Dec. 30 while her owner was shopping.

Lola is a family art car with decals covering her like racing stripes. The simply wrought birds, cars, and other motifs in bright colors were devised and created by Lola’s kids and their dad.

Mauricio Robalino, the artist (and dad) behind the wheel of Lola the art car, says people “would always wave and look at it; it’s nice to see something different like that.”
Lola is a 1988 Toyota Camry, apparently one of the more easy to steal cars found on the street.  Lola has been stolen three times now.

“The first time was my fault,” Robalino admits. “I left the keys in the door.”
But the last two times weren’t that easy.  The second time Lola was stolen so were the back car seats.

When Lola was stolen this time, Melanie Forster (Lola’s mom) was shopping at Trader Joe’s with the kids.  It was a cold and stormy day, and when Forster walked out to go home, Lola was gone.  This proved problematic as Lola contained the car seats needed to get the kids home.  Robalino called a friend, who was willing to help and had his own car seats, and so Forster and the kids were rescued.

Lola was rescued in due time, as well. On Jan. 4, she was found by Tacoma Police on Durango and Center. In her backseat, the car seats sat untouched, next to a schoolbook, lunch bag with a block of fake ice, and mail. The last three items belonged neither to Robalino nor Forster. 

Missing from Lola’s backseat were the brand-new, expensive running shoes Forster had just purchased.

The replacement costs of the running shoes weren’t the only expenses incurred by
Robalino and Forster in the return of Lola. In addition to the towing and storage costs, they had to pay locksmith fees.  Also, Robalino and Forster had to pay for the light switch that might have caused the car’s battery to die to begin with.

“It’s a weird light switch. Probably, they parked the car and went in to see friends and the battery ran down,” Robalino speculates.

The biggest irritation for Robalino at this point is that he was never given the option of picking Lola up from where she was recovered. “They (police) never called us when they found the car,” Robalino complains.  Had he known where Lola was, he could have picked her up himself and not incurred more towing and storage costs.

But he looks optimistically toward the future with Lola and the stickers yet to be created and affixed. “Now that it’s been stolen, I might put more on it,” he muses.