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Thursday, December 09, 2004

Thieves in the Night

One of the aspects of my current job, both good and bad, is that I often get my days off in the middle of the week. Good today, because it gave me a chance to drop my car off for a little work and walk home home, without having to worry about catching a bus to work. On my way home I saw a car parked along the side of the road, both of its doors wide open. A police car sat in front of it. A 20-something man in a black suit was going through the car with a police officer. From what little snippets slipped into my ears when walking by, the car was broken into and some things were taken.

"Tough luck," I said to no-one in particular. I shrugged my shoulders, finished the walk home and didn't think anything more about it.

After throwing some laundry in the washing machine and working on a couple of reviews for an hour, I got up from my computer to get some more coffee. Looking out my window, I noticed my next door neighbor at her pickup truck, doors wide open and taking pictures. Curious, I walked out and asked what was going on. She just pointed to the back window of the truck and I saw the smashed window, with its jagged edges and spider-webbed remnants.

"They left the stereo," she said, "but they took about $3000.00 worth of Eric's (her son) tools."

I told her about what I saw earlier in the morning, just a couple blocks away. She nodded, and said she already called the police. I told her I was sorry, and was quietly thankful for pulling all my holiday shopping inside last night, even though I really felt like leaving it in the car.

So I guess we've got some thieves in the neighborhood. Always unsettling. My neighborhood is the virtual seat of suburbia; mostly lower-middle class, there are a lot of younger families mixed in with a few retirees who've lived here for 30+ years. Hopefully it won't ammount to anything more than breaking into cars.



1 comment:

LadyLitBlitzin said...

Wow, sounds like a mini crime wave. One of my coworkers lives about within spitting distance of my apartment complex and recently there was police activity when a bunch of kids tried to break into one of her neighbor's townhouses. Kind of weird considering it happened at 7:30 at night, not that it's good anytime. I don't really think of my suburban neighborhood that has break-ins.

Another coworker had her car stolen recently, also in a suburban neighborhood, at 10:30 at night -- again, a time when there are lots of people out walking their dogs and stuff. In fact, she could very well have walked out and caught them. Strange.

My roommate had a friend who lives downtown who had his Christmas tree stolen off the top of his car a year or two ago. Talk about Grinchy. Anyway, enough about the holiday crime wave. ;) Glad your gifts weren't absconded with!