Stolen.

Sunday night we accidentally left our garage door open. I didn’t realize it until early Monday morning when I went to go to the gym, opened the door to the garage, and my car was gone. We usually keep our keys in the car in the garage but of course, we usually put the garage door down. My husband just happened to take his key fob in the house with him Sunday night and although they looked through his car, they obviously didn’t find his key or take anything. Luckily I didn’t have anything of value in my car and we’re even luckier that whoever stole it didn’t walk right into our house from the garage since our door connecting the two was unlocked. After filing a police report and contacting our insurance company all we could do was wait, keep our eyes open, and hope we heard something from the police.

Later that afternoon I received an email from a woman who works at the same University as me. She said her husband found my work ID badge near a trail about mile from our house. I contacted the woman and also spoke to her husband who helped narrow down the specific area where the badge was. My husband decided to go on the trail and see if he would find anything else they might have tossed. Just as he got to the end of the trail, he noticed some apartments that backed up to the trail and in the parking lot of one of the apartments…my car.

The police interviewed several people in the apartment complex and of course no one knew anything. After inspecting the car, they dusted for fingerprints and were able to get a few good sets. I’m guessing this isn’t the thieves first rodeo so I’m hoping they’re already in the system and the fingerprints will match someone. Everything in the car was gone including the boys’ carseats and Ben’s backpack. They also found a wallet and some items from another girl that they must have stolen as well.

To be honest, this entire situation was been one huge pain in the ass. For my own mental sanity I’m telling myself that the little assholes must have really needed a carseat and backpack and that it went to some innocent little kid instead of being trashed in a dumpster. I keep thinking that if I had just shut the door or gone back out to get something from the garage I would have noticed the door was up.

In the past day we’ve changed our locks and garage remotes and codes, upgraded our security system, and put in extra security cameras. We now lock the door from our garage into our house and keep our cars locked in the garage as well. Since we don’t live in a high crime neighborhood, I never thought we needed to do these things. One of the things that surprised me  is how many people have told me they also had their car broken into or stolen. And we all have similar reactions. You feel violated, annoyed, on edge, but also grateful it wasn’t worse.

While I was waiting for the police to arrive, the sun was beginning to rise, and I was finally able to calm down and get a little perspective back. While it’s annoying and a huge inconvenience, at the end of the day it’s just a car. We were safe, we learned some valuable lessons, and we put safety measures into place that we should have been doing already. Scary, shitty things are going to happen in life but so are wonderful awesome things. And I’ll be celebrating those things while cruising in my car with the windows down 🙂