I Felt Violated for the First Time in a Long Time!

We seldom lock our vehicles that we park in the driveway behind our house. That's how safe we felt about the relatively small and lovely southern city (with a major state university) where we have been living for the last 25 years.

Until today! As I was trying to leave to go to a neighboring state for a family business trip, I noticed that the door was not well closed. For a second, I thought that I or my spouse might have forgotten to shut the door all the way the night before!

Then I noticed that the glove compartment was wide open and some of its contents were down on the floor. And since the intruder could not easily open the other compartment between the driver and the front passenger seat, they just force pulled it out and left it damaged.

After looking around, we noticed that my wife's car was not well closed either. They must have gone in it as well, but no sign of any missing items either.

I still felt violated by the simple fact that while we were asleep, somebody had the idea of breaking into our vehicles for whatever purposes.

What were the intruders trying to find? Probably items of more value than what they found in place! I have not been able to determine what was missing yet, if anything.

Moral of the story: The area where we live is not as safe as I used to think it to be. I had to call the police to report the act of vandalization that must have happened between 11 PM the night before and the early wee hours the morning. I had to postpone my business trip to later date, pending availability of the business partners.

What is sad about this whole situation is my loss of feeling that we are at safe place and the realization that there is no longer such a place. So much for the Loveliest Village on the Plains!

And yes, we are going to be locking our vehicles every night from now on as if we were in an urban downtown area. So, should you!

Upon hearing what happened to us, four of our five children sent suggestions, recommendations and, yes, new prescriptions to how to conduct ourselves from now on.

Besides locking all the doors all the time and re-installing all the security gadgets, is there anything else you can suggest to us?

And are there not some people at WA who still live in areas where they do not have to barricade themselves inside their homes when asleep and lock up everything of value that is left outside?

Please let me know so that my family can escape near you, for a piece of mind!

Ntam

[this is the kind of stories that I plan to use on our second website, still to come]