On Wednesday, January 12th at approximately 11:00 am, my husband left for the grocery store to pick up some toilet paper. We were out. At 11:58 am, he arrived home and caught a glimpse of a black sleeved arm and a black shiny thing.
It took a minute to register, but that black shiny thing appeared to be a TV and it was being carried through our neighbor's fence. Quite certain it wasn't our neighbors Harry or Wanda, my husband got out of his truck and yelled "what the f*ck are you doing", and the black sleeved arm dropped the TV and ran. My husband proceeded cautiously to the dropped TV. He thought to himself..."gee, that looks like our TV". (shit) He looked toward the back of our house and saw foot prints leading up to our back door. (shit) He knew the foot prints were not his because it was fresh snow, and he had not taken garbage out yet. (shit) He walked to our back door to discover that it was wide open and damaged. (shit) It had been kicked in. (shit) He grabbed a knife out of the drawer in the kitchen and walked through the house. (shit) Thankfully, there was no-one inside.
He called the police. He called me. Then he started looking around the house. Initially he noticed the TV (broken and in our neighbors back yard), the Wii, his laptop, my laptop and his laptop backpack were missing. I arrived home, and thankfully the police were still there. I noticed that our Christmas cash was missing (somewhere between $300-400), digital camera, digital camcorder, the Wii controllers and nunchucks, Wii games, 3 of my Coach handbags (that were hanging on the coat rack in the foyer...I know...STUPID), my Kindle, some jewelry.
The thief stuffed the laptop backpack (which I went to the ends of the earth to find and spent a hundred bucks on) with the missing items. The laptop backpack was purposefully big enough to carry a 17" laptop and school books and accessories. It was HUGE and sturdy...perfect for a thief.
Over the next day or so we noticed that our "spare" cell phones were gone. The ones I kept in my desk drawer as back ups incase something happened to our current ones. Lightwave 3D was IN his computer disk drive, his scientific calculator was in the backpack, AND a mug he got in Germany - about 25 year ago - was missing. The mug was filled with miscellaneous treasures and trinkets...and his SOCIAL SECURITY CARD!
So, now, not only do we have to deal with personal property theft, we have to deal with possible identy theft. I've reported it to the police, the SS office, the Credit Bureaus. I've changed all of my usernames and passwords that may have been prefilled on various websites on my computer.
And while I was changing those usernames and passwords, I completely forgot what new login I had just set up for our bank accounts. I ended up getting locked out of our account for 3 days because I kept trying versions of what I thought I changed it to.
I didn't eat for 2 days following the event and felt broken. I hated being in my house. I hated not being in my house. I slept with my son for the first 2 nights, for fear of an intruder taking him or hurting him. I have allowed him to crawl into our bed for several nights since the intrusion.
We decided not to tell our son what had happened. We didn't want to scare him. We figured the only items he would notice were missing were the tv and the Wii. We made up a story about our cats wrestling (and boy do they wrestle, WWFF {World Wrestling Feline Federation}) behind the tv and accidentally knocking it, and the Wii, off the tv cabinet. He fell for it.
He did ask his dad why he had a different laptop (because we replaced it the next day). His dad said that he took his other one to school and traded with this one. He fell for that too.
So, the items missing total roughly $9,000. Our insurance company was absolutely wonderful and fast with the claim. State Farm rocks.
Most of the items taken is just stuff. I am sad about the digital photos on my laptop. I did save all of my photos to disk about 6-7 months ago, so I'm only missing 6-7 months worth and a lot of them are posted on facebook, so I can get some of them back. The camcorder had the boys holiday program on it. I'm sad about that. But I have photos.
My dad gave me a diamond channel set ring 13 years ago after his double bypass heart surgery. When he returned home from the hospital, I basically moved back in with my parents while he was recovering. I helped him get out of bed and get dressed every day. I helped him up and down the steps. I made him do his lung exercises. I made him eat. You see, he listened to me. He wouldn't do these things for my mom. He called me his Drill Sargeant. After he recovered and was feeling good, he and my mom got me a 1 carat diamond channel set ring as a thank you. Completely unnecessary, as I would do absolutely anything for my parents, but it was very important to me. They picked me up at the airport, after a trip out to Arizona to visit my then boyfriend (now husband) and surprised me with it in the airport. I was so touched I silently cried in the back seat all the way home. And now...it's gone.
Sold for crack.
We spent over $200 securing the doors and windows on the first floor. Another $200 on wood blinds for the front bay window - in lieu of the sheer curtains that hung there.
We spent $655 having an alarm system with cellular communication installed.
This has been one of the most miserable experiences of my life.
And certainly the most expensive Charmin Ultra in the world.
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