Crime Don't Pay (Unless You're a Glass Company)

So Friday morning I stayed home from work, sick.  I slept all morning and woke up at around 10:30 to the sound of glass shattering. Very LOUD glass shattering.  Like, literally, it sounded like someone took every drinking glass out of my cupboard and threw them on my kitchen floor.  I jumped out of bed and ran through my house, trying to find the source of the noise, thinking maybe our light fixture above our kitchen table had suddenly and inexplicably dropped out of the ceiling.  It was intact.  I ran to the bathroom, because clearly a shattering of that magnitude would only happen on hard floor.  No glass there.  I turned to Payson's room, suddenly fearful for Rusty's life.  Although Payson's room has carpet, his tortoise's tank is definitely enough glass to make a loud crash.  Nope, Rusty was safe inside his shell inside his log inside his tank. I turned to Macy's room and saw a neighbor lady peering in the window on her cell phone.  My first thought: "She knows what the crash was.  She knows what's going on." My second thought: "Put some clothes on!!" I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around myself while running to my front door.  But it wouldn't open.  I checked the deadbolt.  It was unlocked.  I checked the doorknob, locking and unlocking it.  It wouldn't turn.  "Somebody's done something to my doorknob so I can't get out!!" I thought in a panic.  I ran back to Macy's window and opened it, asking the neighbor lady what was going on.  She was standing with another neighbor guy.  They told me they had just called 911 after hearing the glass shatter and seeing a kid on a bike tear out of our backyard like a "bat out of hell," looking terrified.  It wasn't until THAT point that I finally put together what happened.  I ran to my backyard and saw Payson's window had been smashed in.

 And our garden rake directly below it.

The pictures don't do it justice at all, there was glass EVERYWHERE.  I ran back inside, threw on some clothes, and grabbed my phone to call Bill.  I ran back outside to my neighbors where they filled me in more.  As they did, I called Bill to COME HOME NOW.  At this point the cop showed up and asked questions, interviewed the neighbors who knew way more than I did, got a pretty detailed description of the dirty little delinquent, and took pictures.  He thought it was more likely that the kid used a rock to smash in the window, pointing to our play area filled with rocks smaller than ping pong balls.  I was skeptical as I eyed the rake laying below the window.  But, I'm not the cop, so I followed him in to Payson's room to "help him look for a rock" and that's when I saw the glass.  Everywhere.  All over both his bunk beds, clear across the room to his closet.  How had I missed it before?? In my bare feet?? As we looked (and found nothing), I told him how the creep had done something to our front door knob so it wouldn't work anymore.  As I said the words, it occurred to me that in my panic I may have been locking it when I thought I was unlocking it.  It would have already been unlocked since I had never left for the day.  I went to check it.  It was locked.  I had locked it trying to get out instead of unlocking it.  I felt a little sheepish.  Luckily he was a nice cop and said something about the crazy things we all do when we're in shock mode.  Thank you, nice cop man. 

Then Bill showed up and told us the kid must have used the rake because it had been over on our patio before (I KNEW it!).  The cop was on his walkie talkie the whole time and told us they'd found the bike in some yard a few streets over, abandoned, which was good for the people he'd stolen it from (we found out later he'd stolen it) and also good for the dogs they were about to send out to track him now that they had his scent and he was on foot.  Alas, they didn't find him, but they did find a woman living in a shed with multiple warrants, so that was a bonus.  (I really love my neighborhood, can I just tell you?) They told me she was unrelated but now I'm hearing that maybe she wasn't so much.  Anyway, after everything calmed down and the cop left, the neighbors left, and Bill reluctantly went back to work, I had a pretty decent headache from the stress and excitement of it all, not to mention the fact that I was already not feeling well (remember the reason I was home in the first place?).  I lay down on my couch and within minutes of Bill leaving, started hearing noises and booked it out of there, ran down three houses to my friend's house--pajamas, glasses and all.  (Turns out it was just the wind through Payson's busted window rattling his door that I'd forgotten Bill had closed.)

Later that afternoon Bill cleaned up the mess and boarded up the window really well.  Payson's room is as dark as a tomb, and will be till the glass people can repair it this next week.  But he's handling it fairly well, considering.  This is the child I've had to have multiple conversations with convincing him the chances of us ever getting broken into were slim to none.  And whose room does the would-be-burglar pick to break into, of all the windows in the house?  Payson's.  Thank you, you little delinquent punk.

Now that the excitement is over, we're just trying to feel safe in our house again.  It's not an easy thing to do when you feel so violated.  Payson's room is like this black crime scene, a constant reminder of what went down.  The scariest part for me, the part I try and fail not to think about all day long, is what would have happened if the guy hadn't been scared off.  If he'd been in Payson's room when I wandered in there trying to find the source of the noise.  Which leads me to tomorrow's post...till then...