Stolen

"This is the police department, we are at your home and it appears to be burglarized."
Not the phone call you want to get on vacation! We drove 10 hours to Tennessee, to spend one day and drive back the following day. The police had told us that our tv was taken, but they couldn't verify anything else until we came home and checked out our home. We spent a day and a half not knowing quite what we'd find when we got home.

The police had told us our house was secure, but we also had friends come by and further secure the broken door.

Thankfully when we got home we found that only our tv and a broken xbox were taken, and of course we'd need a new door.

I am overwhelmed by the response from our friends. So many of you offered words of comfort and encouragement. We had offers to check on our house and offers to check Craigslist for the stolen items. Every message and interaction we received means so much to me.

What we've pieced together: It seems it was just bad luck we were actually on vacation. The intruders broke in around 9am when they thought everyone, us and the neighbors, were at work. One neighbor, who owns a landscape service, came home to cool down and noticed a different car backed up to our house. When he came over to investigate, it scared off the two thieves who ended up only taking two items. Our bedroom was ransacked, but nothing was taken there.

Since then the police told us the same men also burglarized a house in the next neighborhood over the day before ours. The police and neighbors have been on the lookout for the "silver car with temporary plates."

And you know what I want to say to these thieves? I don't really care that you took our tv. I am laughing that the xbox you took was actually broken. I am annoyed that you ruined our vacation. But I am mad that you showed my kids what an ugly place the world can be. Even though they sleep in the same room, my 10 year old needed a parent to sleep with him the first night back because he was worried that you'd come back. Shame on you. I am sorry for whatever happened in your life that lead you to think that breaking into peoples house is okay for you to do. But like kindness ripples out into the world, so does evil and how dare you pass this on to my kids. Maybe you thought this was a victimless crime. That we would claim it on our insurance and end up with a bigger and better tv. But since our deductible is so high, this is all coming out of our own pockets to fix. But I want you to know something else too, the day after you broke into our house - the toothfairy visited, two nights in a row. So even you are not able to steal all the magic from the world.

PS, writting this post reminded me of The True Story of the Lost Wallet