Over at www.lauralippman.com, there’s a follow-up to a post here, about irrational fears. Mine was burglary and, well . . . go read the January letter.
We’re still discovering missing items — the latest is a digital camera with some EXTREMELY precious photos on them. On the plus side, a very nice patrolman came to my door today with all my credit cards, insurance cards, etc., and I was pleased to see that I had a Blue Cross/Blue Shield card that did NOT use my Social Security number.
One card was missing: My Spoons card. This is a point card for my local coffee shop and I have 2,000-plus points on it, which will get you lunch for ten. But the folks at Spoons know about the stolen card — in fact, they’ve already replaced it, with full credit — so I’m not too worried about anyone trying to cash in.
My break-in occurred when I was away. I came home and the door was open, and little Dash who was then just a pup was going crazy. I went in and there was trash all over the house from the kitchen trash can as well as some garbage that I did not recognize. My first thought was “Dash knocked over something.” Then I went into my bedroom, and I thought “But he didn’t take off with computer and printer.” My comforter was in the living room, and the tv was knocked over on the floor on the comforter. I called the police and when the cop got there, Dash attacked his shoes. He asked if I thought that he would have done that to the person that came in. Well, I guess! The cop told me to wait outside so he could check the place to see if it was safe. He said that the tv on the comforter indicated that the master criminal might have been interupted, and he might still be in the house. WHAT!!!
The forensic people came over dusted for prints (they determined that the person wore socks on their hands) and they asked me all sorts of questions.
The end result was the cop told me that he personally felt that it was done by someone who knew me. His theory was Dash got to be too much to handle when he was taking off with the tv – He said any “real” criminal or drug addict would have easily been able to kill my puppy and make off with a lot more stuff. The garbage on the floor? Criminals often take trash bags from outside so when they take things outside it doesn’t look out of the ordinary.
When he left it was just me and Dash, a ton of trash in the kitchen some of which was not even mine. I had to clean all the finger print stuff, and do a ton of wash. It was horrible knowing that someonew touched ever piece of underwear I have looking for something. I also have suspicions as to who do this that I still hold on to today.
I am sorry that you had to go through that too… it’s creepy knowing someone was all in your stuff.
Marika,
My sympathies. (My empathies?) We’re in a different position, absolutely sure that this was a stranger. Albeit a stranger we’ve probably passed in the street several times. (It’s a small neighborhood.)
A number of years ago, I read Katherine Hall Page’s Body in the Bookcase. It involves the burglery of the protaginist’s home. A murder is involved, But I thought the book was really her responce to the theft of her personel things. It was one of those “ah ha” moments. Burglery is a lot more common, than running into a murder, but the results don’t seem to have been written about as much. I still haven’t figured out why this is.
I thought Page really nailed the book. The way that she developed and wrote about the resulting emotions was well done.
I know that it can take quite awhile to discover things missing. Then there is the denial. When I’ve had my car stolen, I had to go out and look several times, thinking I might have looked and not seen it, if I just looked another time, it would still be there. I’d think back to where I’d parked and refreshed my memory, then had to look another time. I didn’t learn anything from it either. When my car was stolen another time, I went through a similar experience, having to look several times, thinking it was still there, but I’d missed seeing it. The feeling of violation can be very personel.
Per the website, I don’t want to give too much away about how the burglary occurred. Let’s just say there was something amiss when I came downstairs that morning, but I thought it was the work of someone else in the household.
About 8:30 a.m., I was trying to find my billfold and couldn’t. Now my billfold migrates a lot, during the day — it might be in my purse, or a knapsack, or a pocket. But then I couldn’t find my keys and that’s unheard of. I was retracing my steps, saying to myself: “I came in at 6 and put my iPod in this bowl . . .” No iPod. That’s when I knew.
But we had weathered it well and, in many ways, felt safer. Yesterday’s discovery that the camera was gone as well was like a setback after the flu.
I’m really sorry to hear (read) about this. Hopefully they’ll catch the guy. Have you tried checking pawn shops for the iPod and digital camera? He probably erased all the stuff, but you never know.
My sympathies. I had a break-in years ago and the emotional impact is tough.
There’s a lot of car-jacking going on around here and guys following seniors home and robbing them in the garage. Just scary stuff these days.
I was first on the scene one morning after the office where I worked had been burglarized. Petty cash, etc stolen, and stuff strewn all over the place. When I called 911 to report the operator asked me if I was alone in the building. Looking back, I think she meant to inquire if ours was the only office.
However, I thought it was an excellent question! These were pre-cell phone days, so as quickly as I could I called my boss and went to wait in the parking lot inside my locked car.
It’s spooky, and the aftermath of general unease and suspicion doesn’t go away quickly.
Laura, I’m so sorry about your house. Do you find there’s something liberating about having your worst fears realized?
One of my neighbors in my very small town regularly leaves the side door of his house not only unlocked but ajar, so his dog can go in and out during the day. Maybe he thinks the dog (a big, slobbery, friendly black Lab) is protection enough, or maybe he just trusts all of us that much.
I’m torn between envying him, and thinking he’s nuts.
What really got me was that the cop was all but positive that they would never catch the person that did it. It was not very Law & Order or CSI ST PETE. It was “yeah, it was probably someone you knew … call us when you figure it out.” And when I told him who I thought it was and gave a detailed explaination as to why, he was “Your probably right, but I don’t know if we can prove it.”
I have very limited contact with this person even today ( married to a girlfriend) and when I see him I think the most horrible thoughts. I really don’t hid my contempt from him or my friend.
One thing the cop did tell me, check local pawn shops and in six months or so be EXTRA careful, because that is about how long it takes to get stuff replaced via insuance and they might come back for the new goodies.
Quite a few years ago, the day we learned friends of ours had returned from a trip to a totally trashed house was the day I called a security company. For a long time I had been paranoid about such a violation….and still am. I’m sorry you had to experience it.
We put on the alarm if we are simply leaving for a ten-minute errand as well as when we are settling in for the evening, even though the police tell us we are in a low crime area. You never know. Incidentally, our company says that 75% of the protection comes from prominently displayed signage/decals.
Laura: My 21-year old �baby� who graduates from Cornell this spring, and was just recently listed as one of the 25 most influential students on campus, and I am insanely in love with, was recently mugged in Ft. Lauderdale.
We had just disembarked from a Caribbean cruise. I am amidst a divorce – to aviod the angst of tangled tinsel, I fled the country. The trip was marvelous with several family members in attendance. After exchanging hugs and wiping my teary eyes, I watched my son disappear into a swirling crowd.
Several days later, he called and gave me a sketchy report on the mugging � mostly assuring me that his two credit cards had been canceled, as well as his cell phone. The thug also took his $40. The call was short � he was still disentangling the confusion the robbery had caused. His older brother got the fuller details: My son and some frat friends had been partying and he decided to leave early. He flagged a cab, which ended up being a �pretend� cab. These creepoids camouflage their cars to look like cabs and seek solo travelers. I haven�t all the details, but I am so very sad my son had this experience � robbed and dumped with no resources in a strange city. I get crazy with the thoughts that he might have been murdered.
I�ve wanted to post this on my site, but have a slight following on campus and didn�t want to embarrass him. So, thanks for the venue to rant.
When my basement compartment in my former building was broken into they were so mad to find only books in three sturdy sealed boxes that they emptied them all on the floor and ripped up most of them. The frightening thing was that our building super was very careful about keeping the basement door locked at all times so it must have been somebody with a key who lived in the building who did that.
My mother always said, “it’s not real until you say it out loud.” I think I’ve brought on my own coincidental happenings sometimes by voicing them, too. Or the Gods really do enjoy playing with us.
I’m with you on a fear of burglaries. Or at least I was until I was hit four times in a one year period when I lived in New York. My address must have been printed on the inside of matchbook covers, right under the ad that said, “You, too, can learn to rob a brownstone in one easy lesson!”
If I could get a book as good as THE NIGHT MEN out of my brush with burglary, I’d be pretty tempted to leave my doors unlocked.
Folks, I believe this novel (by Keith Snyder) is a yet-to-be-discovered classic, an updating of A SEPARATE PEACE that also serves as a distillation of reading’s power and possibility. If I were ever put in charge of a “One Book” program for middle schools and high schools, this would be my pick. But it’s better still when you have some distance/perspective on your teen years.
Clair,
Mainly I realized that my fears were pretty puny, and I need to start testing myself more. Over on the website, I have a link up to Laurie King’s musings on that topic.
I’m keenly aware that I’ve been trying on other people’s worst fears in my fiction — the fears of parents for their children. Some people seem to think it’s only natural for parents to avoid such stories, while other writers make a point of confronting them. (I’ve always felt that the opening of SHAME THE DEVIL, in which a small child is killed, shows how truly tough-minded George Pelecanos is, given that it was written after he became a father.) Michael Connelly is on the record, somewhere, as saying that fatherhood changed what he was willing to do on the page.
I feel lucky. We got a pretty cheap wake-up call. The burglar left two laptops. The police said that laptops are too hard to fence, as they might be password protected, but still — that would have been a real blow, psychologically.
Well, that was embarrassing.
But cool, too. Thank you.
Missing stuff isn’t as bad as the violation. When I was in my early teens, our house in North Hollywood was repeatedly vandalized and broken into. (We were the neighborhood Jews.) The thought on returning home every day was “Let’s see what now…”
I’m sorry to hear you had to be confronted with this. It’s good writing material, anyway.
I’m so sorry about all of this. For some reason, the loss of the photos on the digital camera really struck me. It’s as if the thief stole some frozen moments in time from your life, as well as your consumer goods.
I’m sure you’ve already thought of this, but perhaps if the photos were taken at an event that others attended (a family gathering, book-signing, dinner party, etc.), someone else may have pictures they can give you copies of. They wouldn’t be the same as the ones you took, of course, but at least you’d have something by which to remember the occasion.
Adding my voice to the chorus to say this sucks bigtime. Burglary is weird, especially when amateurs are involved. I’d totally forgotten my own experience from a few years back until now. I was a senior in university, on tense terms with my roommate (a former religious girl turned beautiful femme fatale-ish flake, I’ve heard she’s since calmed down a great deal but we no longer speak) and so when I got home from class and had difficulty opening the door, I didn’t think much of it. Eventually, with the help of the not-so-helpful super, I got into the apartment. Suitcases strewn all over the main room, but I thought my roommate must have been up to something. I went into my room, shut the door and logged onto the Internet.
An hour later, roommate barges into my room, screaming. Her stuff had been trashed. Turns out someone had broken in. Police took report, usual assurances that there might be an investigation (ha) and we were plenty pissed at the super but couldn’t really do much about it.
Conclusion: I really can be clueless sometimes.