The Burglary Saga

Most days, my husband telephones my office at 5 p.m. to say he's gotten home. Tonight I left work a little earlier than usual, at 5:15 p.m., and when I arrived home around 6 p.m., his van wasn't in the driveway. Hummm, I thought, that's odd. Then I remembered he hadn't called me at work.

I gathered up my stuff and got out of the car. I saw then that although the screen door was shut, and front door was open--not too unusual since it was a nice, spring day. I wondered whether my husband had car problems and had someone drop him off at home, or if perhaps our son had borrowed the van. Not thinking too much about it, I went into the kitchen and unloaded my stuff. I poked my head into the garage to see if my husband was there, but he wasn't. I glanced through the sliding glass door onto the patio, but I could hear our dog barking in his run, and I knew if my husband was out back, the dog would be running loose. Ah ha!, I thought--he must be in the bathroom!

Making my way to the back of the house, I saw that the doors of a couple cupboards in my daughter's former room were ajar. I went in and closed them, thinking my husband must have been looking for something. But when I turned toward our bedroom and saw stuff pulled out of all the drawers and strewn all over the floor and the bed, I finally realized what had happened.

About then, I decided maybe I shouldn't be in the house, just in case anyone was still here--although that seemed unlikely. Within about a minute of getting back outside, I saw my husband driving down the street. He had been to the dentist and thought he had mentioned it to me last night, but if he did, I sure don't remember! I told him what I had found and then I went around to the back yard to let the dog out of his run--in case there was still anyone here, Marley could lick him to death, ferocious beast that he is!

Anyway, we called the police after that and tried not to touch much while we waited for them to arrive. We don't keep much of value in the house, but I DID have a $100 bill in one of the drawers in the bedroom--a bit of "bonus" money our mechanic friend had given us when he was able to fix up and sell a car my husband had found for him. I have very little jewelry, but what I have wasn't taken--my wedding band was in an unlikely drawer that I don't think they even searched.

We were actually somewhat surprised at what WASN'T taken. My digital camera was sitting on the desk and that was left. A credit card by the computer was left. None of our TVs, DVDs, stereo equipment, etc., seems to have been touched. In fact, they really seemed to be looking for cash, and if they were hoping for fine jewelry, they didn't find it here! My husband has a prescription for Vicodin and that wasn't taken, so they weren't interested in drugs either. And, of course, they obviously had no appreciation for quilts, fabric, or sewing machines! Obviously uncultured, ignorant types! ROFLOL!

All in all, we were pretty lucky. Oh, and here's what ELSE they left--stuff that wasn't here to begin with: a screw driver/pry tool and a pair of dirty socks. Yuck!

After taking the report, the police left, saying the CSI guy would be by this evening. Sure enough, Mr. CSI Guy showed up about a half hour later, toting his little kit of crime detecting goodies, and snapping on his latex gloves--just like on TV! Since CSI--the TV show--was a rerun tonight, we were entertained by the reality version! This is the window the burglars came in through:

See all that nice black powder? I kind of think there were two burglars; the smaller of the two came in the window and unlocked the door for the larger of the two. Anyway, for all his efforts, Mr. CSI Guy didn't find any prints. We suspected and he confirmed that the burglars probably used those dirty socks to cover their hands while they went through our stuff. I asked him why they would have left their socks and tool here, and he said that's pretty common because then they can't be arrested with "burglary tools" on their persons. Interesting the stuff you learn!

So now I have a mess to clean up and a bunch of things to put away. I guess I'd better get to it! And I still have a few things to check to make sure nothing's missing, but really it doesn't look like it is. But, darn it, I've missed another night of quilting! And that's really the biggest loss!