The Robbery That Wasn't

My wife had a scare this past week which is a roundabout way of saying that I also had a scare this past week. She took our son to school and then went to her English class and after leaving went to the store to buy some sillao which is soy sauce. She prefers the Peruvian kind if she can get it. Once she got to the store she discovered that her purse was missing and she went into a panic. Convinced that somebody had stolen it out of her car at the school she raced home and woke me from my fitful slumber to deliver the bad news.

I asked her where she had last seen it and she said she had it at the Hobby Lobby the night before but she knew that she had left it in her car afterwards. Leaving her purse in the car has been her standard procedure and many times I've spoken to her about how it's inviting someone to steal it. Now I told her that she needed to go back to the school and call the police to file a report. As she left I started compiling a list of who we had to notify and what we had to replace. Important things like the credit card company and the bank were at the top of the list but other things were important as well. Her drivers license, her social security card and more were all in there.

She didn't come back to quickly so I was sure that the police had came and were taking her report. After a bit longer she showed back up with a sheepish look on her face and I knew that it had been found. At the school she found out that her car was parked in a blind spot for the cameras so that was no help. Once the police came and took her report she decided to go to the Hobby lobby store that she had been to and, you guessed it, they had her purse.

The night before while there our son had needed help zipping up his coat and she lad laid her purse down  to help him. She the proceeded to walk out not realizing that she hadn't picked her purse back up. Against all odds nothing was missing which was a major blessing. After it was all over we were able to laugh about it but I made sure to make clarify the dangers in leaving her purse in her car like that, not that I think it will make any difference. Perhaps at least she'll make sure it can't be seen.

The truth is there really isn't much anyone could get from robbing us, we're that bad off. Of course in our current predicament financially anything we lost would be hard to overcome. Later that night I started thinking about how little interaction I actually have had with thieves and robbers in my life. In my forty-eight years on this planet I can only think of two instances when something along those lines has occurred and both have been since I married my wife. Does this mean I assign some kind of blame to her? Of course not, it just worked out the way it did.

The first was right after we got married. We were living in her apartment intending to only stay until we found something better. She had already had a problem with someone with a key entering her apartment and stealing small amounts of money (mostly from a cup of coins) but we thought we had fixed that problem by keeping the front door locked and installing a padlock on the back door. That way only we had the key to it. It worked for a while until one night after coming home from work we found that the thief had jimmied the lock open in the bathroom window, crawled in, and made off with her laptop as well as the camcorder we had bought to film our wedding with. Then he or she had left through the much larger bedroom window.

To top it off her jerk landlord refused to believe that it had happened from one of his employees (relatives) and basically accused us of faking it. It was all I could do to restrain myself from punching him out and I think he realized he had crossed a line so he dropped his point and left quickly. Needless to say my wife no longer felt safe in that apartment and we got out as soon as we could.

My second encounter with a thief occurred in the house that we bought and currently live in. It was somewhere around three years after the previous break in and my wife came home with our then less than a year old son to find that we were the victims of a burglary. Some scumbag had busted our door in and grabbed what turned out to be mainly things that had sentimental value. He was in and out more than likely in less than five minutes.

The hard to take thing is that our neighbor saw the perpetrator exiting our driveway with what turned out to be one of our pillowcases stuffed with our belongings. She give the info to the police and they did basically nothing, probably because she didn't see him leaving the house and couldn't one hundred percent identify him. I know, it's a garbage excuse from them but honestly I didn't expect much in the first place. The powers that be in Tulsa have more important things for the police to do, like give out speeding tickets.

So there you have it, my life experience with getting robbed (so far). Two burglaries, no holdups, no car break-ins and nothing stolen from my desk at work, at least that I can recall. After all, I am getting old and my memory isn't quite what it used to be. That sound you hear is me furiously knocking on wood hoping that I haven't jinxed myself.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.