So last night I came home and parked my car and went to bed. That’s all. At 8:30 this morning my doorbell rang, and outside was our lovely next-door neighbor. I thought she had gotten some of our mail ( this often happens). Silly me. She’d come to tell me that as she walked the dog, she noticed there was NO GLASS in the passenger window of my car. Just shards.
This is what I found when I came outside to look. Of course that’s not the worst of it. Missing:
One 20 G iPod vintage 2004 (loved it’s vintage-ness)
One iPod car charger
One iPod radio cable
One iPod Firewire and cable
One BRAND NEW Garmin GPS and its suction cup thingy
NOT MISSING:
My valet key
All the quarters for parking meters
A Trader Joe’s reusable shopping bag
A fancy purse I bought in Berlin that needs to be repaired
The insurance people were just lovely (of course the deductible means they probably don’t owe us much; it’s going to be a debate about the value of what is now a vintage iPod v an obsolete iPod.) But they helped right away and found a glass company that comes to the house and can come today so I have the car for a big appointment tomorrow and all business is done by Shabbat.
The police came fairly quickly too. And took all the information and called "crime scene" to come and look. They took some photos but basically said there wasn’t much they could do. Which was what I expected.
SO. It could have been much worse. BUT I’M SO PISSED! Of course primarily that I’m so stupid. I took the GPS off the little holder and put it in the glove compartment but the police tell me that THIEVES LOOK ON THE WINDSHIELD FOR THE CIRCLE FROM THE SUCTION CUP!!! It doesn’t matter if you take the machine with you; they’re liable to break in anyway in the hope that you didn’t. IT’S A BUSINESS.
And leaving the damn iPod in the car. How stupid can I be? But this is a sweet little neighborhood, diverse, friendly and generous and with the highest voter turnout in all of DC. It’s just so sad that no matter how hard a community works to be safe, a couple of lemons can screw the whole thing. Apparently these dudes are breaking into cars all over the city. GPSs are big business. Of course the people who buy stolen ones don’t feel like criminals – they leave that up to the guys who break into cars and do the stealing. It’s like drugs I guess- if there were no market people wouldn’t offer the product.
Anyway this is not musical prose but I’m so angry; this is a good place to vent it. Oh and if you have a GPS – take it ALL inside at night. Every night. Damn it.