Violated

I woke up last night to use the restroom.  While up, I decided to check if my kids have a blanket over their bodies.  It is often that I find them curled up in a ball,  ice cold from the cold that settled in after the warm bodies of their parents left to go sleep in their normal bed.  On my way back to my room with my eyes half closed,  I noticed someone going through my husband's belongings in his truck.  I woke up my husband.   It seemed like thousands of thoughts were flying through my head.  It was 2:30am and I was wide awake.  Has he been there a while?  What was he able to take so far?  Did Peter forget to take out his wallet again and if yes did the guy already found it?  Should I call the police or scare him away?  At that moment I decided to flick the light.  The sleazeball saw it and ran to his beat up older what looked like red Accord or similar and with loud acceleration got away.  

"Should I call the police?" I asked my husband.  (Smart thoughts often follow actions)
"Its a little late for that don't you think, " he answered.

He came down the stairs to see the verdict:  a staple gun, a framing gun, two finish guns, sawzall, electric planer and a tool bag, his work folder with important signed contracts, camera, his gym bag, all missing.  I am thankful that his wallet was at home and that the garage opener wasn't stolen.  His other expensive tool was there too; maybe he didn't get to see due to my brave act of flipping the light.

So, there I lay from 2:30 am until the sun rose over Portland at about 5 am wide awake thinking about whether we should have called the police instead and playing the image I saw over and over again in my head, wondering how long it would have taken the police to get up our hill in the middle of the night and whether they would have made it here in time.  I lay there feeling violated, tricked, with my little safe heaven world shattered.  I've had this feeling before when a car we had when we lived in apartments about 8 years got stolen and totally stripped off its panels, seats, everything.  Even though we didn't have theft insurance and had to pay for everything out of pocket , this feeling was numbed with time.   And now, not having a television for nearly 5 years and not watching the daily news of robberies, homicides, rape, kidnapping and such as made us relax a bit and pretend that we live in this safe, little, culde-sac where only neighbours or good people drive through who would never do us any harm.

This was a good reminder for us to get our act together and start checking and double checking our cars, doors, windows and such.  I don't want to be paranoid about it, but I think there was a reason why I happened to wake up at the very same time that the theft was happening.  It would be a responsible thing to do.

When my husband gets home from work tonight, we will file a police report.  I went on Portlandmaps.com last night (ya know, I had to occupy my self with something while I stared at the ceiling) to check crime in our area and confirmed that we do live in a safe area with theft and other violations rarely happening.

So lock your cars.  Lock your cars.  Lock your cars. Lock your cars.  There.  Maybe we'll remember now.