Road Blogger

What began as a good evening, turned out to be bad the following morning for my son and I. We were burglarized between the hours of 11:00 pm to 5 am. Even more disconcerting, someone came in to our bedrooms while we were asleep to rip us off. Thankfully no one was hurt.

When my son awoke in the morning, he asked me if I moved his rental car and where did I park it? I told him it was parked in the drive way. He thought I was playing tricks by throwing his pants outside until he saw my clothing too. I got up and began to see mounting evidence of the burglary. My home and car ransacked and the screen window ripped to shreds. I held my anger better than my son as we began damage control canceling credit cards, notifying police. We called work and took the day off to get cash and duplicate drivers’ licenses. I changed all the locks and called a security company for quotes. We took inventory of what were lost, mostly personal items like watches, CD’s, camera a days worth of work etc. I was pissed and scared at the same time. I cannot imagine what would have happened had I awoke.

I thought back to the night before where dinner with woman I am dating went really well. I felt good vibes coming home until I noticed a strange car in front of my house around 11am. These people headed to a party across the street. I thought nothing of it then but after the burglary I felt angry toward them. Especially when I found the slim cigars lying on the ground near the shredded screen-young people typically smoke these. The police told me not much would come from this type of evidence and that the detectives would concentrate on the rental car. They took information in a calm business like manner and I refrained from asking one officer about his “Pistol Expert” insignia.

My son was itching to have a talk with the kid who hosted the party across the street. He was as angry as the time he had a fight with his mother’s boyfriend; he almost knifed him. Thankfully that talk didn’t happen at that moment. Our emotional state began settling down as we took care of the business needing attention throughout the day. Later, as we informed the other neighbors of the burglary, we were calm in our presentation before we reached the neighbor kid’s home. I stayed away from accusations and told them-him and his family to be extra vigilant because we were burglarized and the only good thing was good that no one got hurt. I could tell the neighbor kid felt responsible for the burglary. The following day he approached me and apologized. I said “for what? I don’t blame you. If there anything to learn, pay attention to the people you are with and notice who of your friends would come to your hood and do something like this! You would know then they certainly aren’t your friends.”

Some of my friends thanked me for sharing my experience. Some thought of their own complacency in their home security and my experience was their wake up call. Some shared their stories of how their boundaries crossed in situations like this. At first, I was disassociated but I am thankful for it got me to take care of business. But now, it “creeps” me out when I think about it and what could have happened. It seems hard to set it aside now.