Reflecting Lights

To be frank, today was terrible. I knew it was going to be snowing, and I watched as it began to stick while I was at work. It was going to be a tough drive getting home, just because it was slick and there hadn’t been any plows go through nor any salt trucks. I was worried (mainly because I had errands that I wanted to run), but it wasn’t a big deal.

At least not until 1:15. The phone rings at work. I answer. The person says “Elizabeth?” I respond, “No, this is Mylene.” What stopped me short was, “Angel? Are you okay?” Only my husband calls me Angel. Why was he calling and asking if I was okay? Just worried I hadn’t left work early because of the weather, maybe?

No. He was terrified because he came home to a broken window, our belongings scattered in the living room, and a card from the police on the table.

We were robbed.

We’ve only lived in this city for less than a year, and we’ve had minor vandalism to my car, and now we’ve been burglarized. I’m not liking city life.

At first, aside from being scared and cold (come on, don’t break windows when it’s not even double digits out!) We surveyed the damage and weren’t too upset. Playstation 2 and all of the games (about 12, I think), and about 25 DVDs. I was also certain the camera was stolen because it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, but my husband disagreed because it didn’t look like the robber had gone upstairs, since nothing was messed up like it was downstairs (broken candy dish, pulled out electronics, flipped over television, etc).

We laughed it off for awhile. After all, they took games we didn’t play often anyway, the PS2 we were thinking about replacing (it doesn’t like a lot of games), and the joke was on them for the DVDs the stole–they specifically stole our X-Men movies, but I think they just randomly grabbed from the top shelf, which resulted in them getting such gems as French Kiss and The Cutting Edge. Ha. Unfortunately, they also got my Shall We Dance? (Japanese) and Kamikaze Girls [for some reason, it won't let me italicize that one]. But those will be easy to replace, and probably fairly hard for them to get any money out of.

It took us a few hours before we noticed. The laptop was gone. So was a binder of CD-Roms. All had been upstairs (near where the camera had been–I was right). I went into the bedroom and noticed the boxes containing the new watches we’d received for Christmas were on the floor. Thankfully, they were still there (they were very expensive watches). It also confirmed my suspicion that they’d attempted to steal my Nintendo DS. It had been upstairs, and I found it downstairs. My husband had initially assumed the cops had moved it when they dusted for prints, but I held onto the suspicion they’d been upstairs. He believed me once he realized the computer was gone.

It’s a horrible feeling. It’s not so much that it happened, but now there’s the fear of, “What if they come back?” We have a lot of DVDs, a lot of quick cash. Do robbers often return to the scene of a robbery to steal more? They weren’t interested in our major electronics it seems for the most part (although it looked like they considered stealing the stereo but may have been spooked off by a noise and left it). Rather, they just wanted small and easy to carry stuff.

Bastards.

I hope they catch them. I hope they manage to get back our stuff, at least the laptop and my copy of Sleeping Beauty which I can’t easily replace, I don’t think. I wouldn’t mind being forced to buy a new PS2, I needed one anyway. And at least a few of the movies I was considering getting rid of anyway. But it’s the principle of the matter. I no longer feel safe, and I don’t know how to feel safe. They only had at most a 1.5 hour window when they could have broken in. What if they watch me leave again on Thursday and repeat? That’s clearly what they did today. It worries me, I hate this fear. And I want my stuff back.

I’m searching for the silver lining, and I will admit there is one. They didn’t take the anime collection. All of the DVDs, manga, art books, soundtracks, and J-pop CDs were left on the shelf. I guess that’s a decent silver lining. I do think they touched them. A few were pushed back very slightly from their original positions, although at least in the case of one of the items shifted, that might have been because of me. They left my Sugar DVD alone, even though it was on top of the entertainment center that had all the PS2 stuff pilfered and my pretty crystal candy bowl shattered.

I’m not telling my family about this. They’re too over-dramatic. But I did feel like getting it out in writing. Today, we were robbed. This bites.