Last night (or more accurately, very early this morning) we had someone pilfer through our car AGAIN. This is the third time for us in Cincinnati. After the first time (my camera was stolen) I was much more diligent about locking it. The second time was just a fluke, I had forgotten to lock it. There was nothing stolen, just the glove box contents was emptied out on the floor. Oh, and I forgot about the rock through the window at Christmas. Nothing taken then, either. Phillip was distracted last night and forgot to lock the car. It's almost like the thieves around here have ESP and KNOW when we are forgetful!
I have three kids and three kids require a lot of stuff. So there was a lot of just stuff in there. Lawrence is potty training, so there's extra underpants. Portable potty seat for emergencies. Extra diapers. A stroller. A back-pack carrier. A recently-purchased BAG OF RUGS from Bed Bath and Beyond that I forgot to take inside for the past few days. All along with the print outs of directions to various places, old sucker sticks, hats, a quilt, picnic blanket, a few baggies of Cheerios, stickers, McDonalds toys, and even a stray french fry here and there. I make no claim as to my neatness in the car.
And, of course, my wallet. The only reason the wallet was in there at all was we went to Target so Archie could get more duct tape for a project. And I had too much stuff in my hands so I laid the wallet between Lydia's car seat and the regular seat. Of course, I forgot about it.
I was really sleepy this morning. But when Phillip came back inside before leaving for work to tell me that our car had been broken into AGAIN, the adrenaline woke me right up. I was laying there nursing Lydia and trying to think of everything of value that was in there. And I remembered the back-pack carrier, quilt, diaper bag, oh, yes, and the wallet. Dangitall.
When I went out there, of course my wallet wasn't there. Oddly enough, the stuff that I was most worried about WAS there. Mostly, my back-pack carrier, my car quilt that Mom made, and my $40 bathroom rug that I got on sale for $30. The people who stole from us must have been either men or too young for children because I can guarantee that if it was a woman of child-bearing age, that back-pack baby carrier would've been gone! Stuff like that is expensive to replace. They probably could've gotten 80 bucks or so just for that if they had tried to hock it quickly on Craigslist. Getting a new one would set me back a couple of hundred dollars. The quilt I could never replace. So if they had to steal something, the wallet was my preference.
Turns out, a guy called while I was trying to cancel the one credit card I keep in there. (No one had tried to use the debit or credit card yet.) He was the maintenance guy for the apartment complex down the street and found my wallet near the dumpster. Everything was there, except my debit and the one credit card. I had already transferred the balance of my account to Phillip's account for safe keeping, and cancelled my debit right at 8am. No harm done.
The stuff in the wallet that I would have missed, such as my museum and zoo memberships, coupons, photos, and driver's license, was all there. Even my checks and coupons were there. I never keep cash on me so I'm sure the burglars were really not happy that they wasted their time and chances of getting caught. They got nothing from me. I even found a twenty-dollar check written to me that I had forgotten all about depositing!
The whole thing makes me think about what I value vs. what other people value. I value things that make life easier (like a back-pack baby carrier) over my credit cards. Cards are much easier to replace than a custom made baby quilt! I suppose this means that every single thing in my car (including the wallet) other people think is a bunch of crap, not even worth stealing. If someone had stolen my baby sling, now...I would be hopping mad! I think they took the only two things in the car that, if I had to choose, would be the very things of any value I would have chosen for them to steal. I'll probably be singing a different tune if my identity gets stolen some time in the future from this event. But I really don't think the crooks that did this are that smart. If they were, they would've gone for the baby carrier instead of the wallet!
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