Life imitates literature yet again:
Officers said they began searching for [the] car after a grocery store employee phoned authorities to report that a car leaving the store’s parking lot was missing a wheel.
Lt. Shaun McColgan said [the driver], who was behind the wheel of the car when police arrived, admitted to being intoxicated, but said it did not matter because “he ‘wasn’t driving.’”
The police said [the driver] did not know his car was missing a wheel, nor did he know where or why the crucial car part might have come off the vehicle. The officers said they retraced the path followed by [the driver] — aided by the scratch marks his car left on the pavement — but were unable to locate the missing component. ^
And the original, as written by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel—he stared at it for a moment, and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.
“It came off,†some one explained.
He nodded.
“At first I din’ notice we’d stopped.â€
A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders, he remarked in a determined voice:
“Wonder’ff tell me where there’s a gas’line station?â€
At least a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond.
“Back out,†he suggested after a moment. “Put her in reverse.â€
“But the WHEEL’S off!â€
He hesitated.
“No harm in trying,†he said. ^
Denial of responsibility seems an eternal trait.
[...] this is true: As reported before, scenes from literature often come to life, which tells us why people read books in the first [...]