The Break-In

Well, I don't mean to interrupt all of this positive and exciting posting, but I guess there's one bit of news that needs to be discussed. Last Monday I got home from work, and everything seemed normal as I was walking up to the house. I could hear Annabelle going crazy, like she always does when my car pulls up, and it was a nice, sunny day outside. I noticed Emily's car wasn't in the driveway, so I figured she hadn't returned home from work yet. However, once I walked up to the back door, things started to seem funny. The back door was unlocked. Now, I'm sure I've forgotten to lock the door at least once this year, but Emily's always good about it. I kinda laughed at how I was going to be able to make fun of her a little bit when she got home. She had gone to pick up Annabelle that morning from the Kennel, and I could totally see her sleeping too late and coming back in such a rush that the door was missed.

Anyway, I walked inside and let the dog out.... that's when I saw the knife. One of our carving knives was sitting on one of Annabelle's beds in the second bedroom/office/cave. I thought it seemed weird, but we had just gotten back from Shelley's wedding and hadn't unpacked yet, so things didn't really click yet. You can tell I'd had a rough day at work. Anyway, I walked out to the front of the house, and then I noticed our branch cutters sitting on another of Annabelle's beds... and the front door was wide open.

Seriously, chills went up my spine as I typed that, and I'm almost in tears again thinking about how I felt in that one moment. My mind instantly shot back to how my friend, Paul, had been killed. I grabbed the knife and went tearing back through the house screaming Emily's name. I almost passed out as I walked into the bedroom, almost expecting to see the worst. Thankfully, Emily was not home. I noticed the back window screen was missing and the window was slid open.

The first thing I did was call Emily to make sure she was ok. She was only a few minutes away from getting home. I then called the non-emergency police number, and they said they'd send a car to the house. The next most chilling moment of this whole ordeal came when the lady on the phone asked me if I was sure I was alone in the house. I'd been in all the rooms except the front bathroom and our guest house. I decided that I was going to wait for Emily in one place with the dog, and not touch anything else. I was never so glad to see Emily walk through that front door.

Eventually, the cop showed up, and he really put our minds at ease for the time being. He was even a little funny, and his professional way of talking to us and looking over the house made the whole situation much more frustrating, instead of scary. Unfortunately, our thief was wearing gloves, and he wasn't able to get any fingerprints off the door handles or the knife, which I had grabbed anyway. We took inventory, and here is a list of the damages:

Emily's iBook computer (including several thousand songs and pictures she had on it)
My Dell PDA
Our new digital camcorder (complete with all of our film from Tucson and the Inauguration)
My old camcorder (with a tape in it... I hope it wasn't my last Vandy tape)
Emily's makeup bag from the trip
Emily's jewelry bag from the trip (including the Tiffany necklace I got her)
My Xbox (but not the Wii, which was sitting right next to it)
Our Bose iPod docking station stereo from our wedding registry

Looking at the list, things could have been much worse. Emily was wearing her wedding/engagement ring at the time, which she hadn't been earlier this month because it had cracked. Annabelle, who had been locked in the bedroom, had successfully prevented anyone from entering that room. And most importantly, all three of us were safe. We'll miss all of those memories lost on the computer and the camera, but some of it is on this blog, so we haven't lost it all.

Anyway, as it stands now, nobody has been caught. It seems someone had tried to break into our neighbor's house two days prior to it all, so hopefully someone will get caught in the neighborhood soon... although the likelihood of getting our stuff back is pretty slim. Now we're just trying to move on. Unfortunately, while I love our house and neighborhood, I don't think I'll ever feel 100% safe here again. We'll just have to be careful and do the best we can to keep ourselves and our belongings safe... starting with letting The Munchkin loose in the entire house while we're gone. Our things may have a few more bite marks in them, but at least they'll still be in our possession to throw away. We'll let you know if anything ever comes from our case.