Break In

The day before our school's big day - a festival fundraiser a year in the planning for which I was the chairman - I was at the school, with a bunch of other people setting up and getting the grounds ready for the event when I received a phone call from my next door neighbor. I wasn't even going to answer - heck, I was BUSY! Well, she doesn't call very often ... well, almost never. So I figured I should answer.

She told me that my other neighbor saw that our front door was wide open. So he came to the door and called out for someone. Realizing that no one was home, he stepped in and saw all the broken glass. He called the police. Then he walked next door and asked my neighbor if she knew how to contact me. And she did.

I left the school in a tizzy, tried to call Jess on the eight-minute ride back to the house. When I got there, the police were still there. They'd already been inside the house, but they walked back in with me to make a record of what was stolen - my laptop, the little (read: cheap) flat screen tv in our bedroom, the Wii and a basket containing all of its accessories, and my iPod. They also tried to pull the bigger flat screen tv off the wall in the toy room. But (patting myself on the back), it was mounted onto a stud so they only managed to break the damn thing. So we still have the tv, but we have a broken tv. Not a lot was stolen, but enough for us to feel it and enough for it to be a lot of money to replace. Fortunately, they didn't go down the hall, so they left Sydney's room alone - with the same size tv as in the playroom, her laptop, and the $24 she left sitting on her desk.

It's a terrible feeling, it's a creepy feeling - all the bed covers were pulled off our bed. The feeling that someone was rummaging around our house made my skin crawl. The police were great, they handed me a tissue when my eyes teared up, and they listened to me rant and rave about how I hate despicable people that would do something like that.

I got a hold of Jess and of course, she freaked out. She'd been having CSI type nightmares for the last several months and this was NOT what she needed to hear. She told me we were moving NOW, and that she would spend all kinds of money to make sure our new house was secure. Of course, Jess' knee jerk reaction is always a severe one, and by the time I met up with her later that night, she'd calmed down and we weren't moving. LOL!

I cleaned up the shattered glass, our friend came over and screwed a piece of wood to cover up the broken window, and I returned to the school for a few more hours to help finish getting ready for the festival.

Now, to dig out the homeowner's policy and buy a new door.