The original post: /r/glitch_in_the_matrix by /u/Nervous-Case6909 on 2024-12-19 11:07:32.

Contrary to the title, this car was not a Tesla or any other car with self-driving capabilities. It is a 2012 Toyota Prius. This happened three months ago and I still haven’t been able to come up with a rational explanation. (other than a glitch?)

It was a week before my brother’s wedding, so I was staying with my parents to help them with preparations. My mom asked me to go pick up her Sephora order from the mall. So I borrowed one of their cars, drove over there, and parked near the entrance closest to the Sephora.

For context: this is an indoor mall that I’m *very* familiar with, because I grew up in that area. While some of the stores have moved in and out, the general layout has stayed the same and the Sephora has been in the same spot for as long as I can remember. You go through the side entrance, up the escalator, make a left, and it’s the third store on your right.

So I go inside and the first thing I see is brand new splatter room. I love splatter rooms, so I took a photo and texted it to my cousin group chat to tell them we should all do that together when they came into town for the wedding. Then I ran up to Sephora, grabbed my mom’s order, and ran back out the entrance I came in. I was inside for less than ten minutes.

When I got to where I had parked the car, it wasn’t there. There was another car in that spot. I thought for sure I was just misremembering and it must be in the general area, so I started weaving up and down the parking spaces. After five-ish minutes, I started pressing the lock button on my keys, but I couldn’t hear anything from the car. I was super confused, but still figured I was just misremembering. Maybe I parked further away from the entrance and hadn’t realized it? So I walked all the way down that row of parking spaces until I got to the actual road, carefully looking at every spot, all the while still pressing the lock button on the keys. Nothing. Then I did the same thing for the parking rows on either side of where I thought I’d parked. This time I was pushing the “panic” button too. Still nothing.

I knew the car must have been stolen and I couldn’t believe that this would happen right before my brother’s wedding. I called my mom and explained the situation to her. The whole time she was on the phone I was walking  up and down different parking rows looking for the car, hoping to God I’d just missed it. I knew I had to go inside and ask security if they had camera footage, and then report the car stolen. But also… I’m brown and have had bad cop experiences before. So I thought that I would walk all the way around the mall just once, and THEN report the car stolen.

I was still rapidly pushing the lock and panic buttons trying to breathe deeply and not freak out. When I got to the *other side* of the mall, a completely different entrance than the one I had come out of like 40 minutes earlier, that’s when I heard the car. It was there, and it was parked. Just… not where I left it.

I wanted so badly to believe that I just forgot where I’d parked the car. I tried telling myself that I was just stressed with wedding preparations. But I had the text that I’d sent to my cousins about the splatter room. With a photograph. Two of them had replied to it. I know I went in that entrance. If I had parked it on the opposite side I would have had to walk all the way around the mall to get to that entrance, which was ridiculous. It still creeps me out just thinking about it.