Long and short of it, some punk broke into my house in the middle of the day while we were at work and stole about twelve hundred dollars worth of our stuff.
There's something unique about being robbed; any feeling of normalcy you had up until that point utterly disappears, takes the first flight out of town and leaves you with raw emotions and a brain that's only working part-time.
These are my thoughts so results may vary. And if you've gone through any of this, this sucks.
So for me, Tuesday already started off pretty sucky. A two man job was dropped down to one, and I basically had to drop whatever I was doing to become the one guy doing it. So once quitting time came around, I was more than happy to go home.
Here's the funny part of coming home to a robbery, you don't expect it. I came home, went to the kitchen to throw away the junk mail and went to my room. From my point of view, the entire house looked like normal. I thought everything was normal for about an hour. It wasn't until I wanted to play some Call of Duty on my Xbox in the living room that I even noticed anything; and that was mostly because the Xbox wasn't there. And that's where my mind skipped a gear and stalled. And work became a distant, pleasant memory.
The denial.
I went back to my room and walked back into the living room. Nope. Xbox still missing. I went to my room and back. Still missing. "Huh, weird. Better check the sofa." - said my mind. Not there either. "Maybe one of my roommates has it... even though none of them have a TV." "Better check", I thought, so I sent them a text. Before any of them answered me I noticed the glass next to the kitchen. "It could've been a bird". I knew at this point that someone had broken in, but I just didn't want to admit it. There's just no way this could happen to me. And then I noticed the unlocked kitchen door that no one uses. And that's when the sinking feeling struck. A coldness washed over me and I knew I couldn't deny it anymore. I had been robbed.The haze.
The next 6 hours became a blur. I called the cops and called my roommates to let them know what happened. But then what? I had to wait. So I called my parents. And at this point, I'm numb. My emotions have collapsed in on themselves, leaving only anger, and my brain is repeating over and over "THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. Who would come into my house and take my stuff?" My parents are talking to me, but I can't process their calming words to me. I call my brothers and sisters(most of them, I forgot one), and their words also echoed to me. And at some point during this, the cop shows up and takes a report of what's missing;- The Xbox
- Two of the four controllers
- One game (It later increased to three)
- One laptop
- Two handguns
The only other things I remember is that a friend's battery died on her and she called me for help, one of my roommate's dad bought us dinner, and that I went to sleep at around 11pm.
The day after.
I woke up at 4:30 in the morning feeling powerless. This was no longer my house, my stuff wasn't really mine. If anyone wanted any of it, what's to stop them? How are my roommates taking all of this? How should I be feeling? Who steals an Xbox and leaves two of the four controllers? What am I going to do with two controllers and no Xbox? Is anyone else I know in danger of being robbed from what they could've found here? Should I still go to work? But there was one question always behind the others... simmering..
How come I wasn't able to stop any of this?
All of my plans, strengths and talents had been overcome by some random kid with a rock he grabbed from my front yard. I thought, "If he had been here while I was here, I could've done something." "I would've been able to protect MY domain" "If there was more than one and I got beaten, I wouldn't have gone down without a fight."
But one thought kept coming back: "I... wasn't there for when I was most needed..."
I was able to get off of work early so I could fix the window, get quotes on home security, take full stock on what was missing, buy some stopgap home security measures, think about getting a dog and miscellaneous chores that kept me busy until around 10:00pm.
Every time I left the house, I kept thinking, "The kid could've come back. I'm not there. I should get back now." And only had one feeling that could only be best described as a murderous rage that can only be satisfied until the blood of the guilty paints my walls, their entrails are used as rope and their head is on a pike in my front yard. (It's a strong feeling)
It's been two days and some feelings have tempered, but now I get paranoia whenever I'm gone from the house. As I get closer to home, I get a panic attack as my thoughts go wild on what could be missing when I pull up. I know that sooner or later, normalcy will return and this will become another experience of the which I will be able to learn from. And maybe even laugh about. But until then...
...this sucks!
At what was probably the funniest/ironic thing about the whole day. This is what I had on that day...
