Friday, October 12, 2012

One Night of Crime

I had hoped to post another review today, but something else came up. The original plan was to sit and watch the vice-presidential debate and type up the review. The debate started and I watched about 15 minutes of it before thinking to go get my computer. Along the way I noticed my son had not taken out the trash to the curb and I got distracted gathering it up.

There was also a considerable pile of bags in the garage from our week of cleaning/painting/etc. I opened the garage and started farming out all the trash because it wouldn't all fit in our bin. After about 5 minutes of doing this I just stopped and stared at my driveway. Here is my thought process for the next few minutes.

Where's my van?
Did hubby sneak out to get a milkshake or something?
Maybe he's playing a trick on me.
He couldn't have come downstairs and left without me seeing him.
I put the last bags in a bin and head inside. Sure enough, hubby is still sitting at his computer listening to the debate.
Holy crap!
"Um, hun, do you know where the van is?"
"I parked it behind my car."
"It's not there."
"Are you sure?"
Duh!
We both go and look again, just in case I had suddenly developed a rare disease which caused mini vans to no longer register in my brain.

Sure enough it was gone. We asked all of our neighbors if they'd seen it just in case. The  next few hours dragged and we knew we were going to have a hard time sleeping. It seems there was quite the crime spree in our neighborhood last night. Several cars were broken into in addition to our van being taken.

The scary part is it all happened right under a bright street light while we were all home and we never noticed!

The good news is the police found our van around 2:00am--still warm and not far away. By 3:00am it was processed and back in our garage where it will stay until-- 1) we re-key it (because they kept the valet key, more on that in a minute) or 2) we move.

Lessons learned:
  1. If you park in the drive way, remember to lock your car (we usually do, but in the craziness it was missed last night.)
  2. Don't leave your valet key in the van. It's better to just call triple A if you get locked out.



16 comments:

  1. Sorry your van was stolen but glad you got it back so quickly. That was a blessing, because often thieves will trash the vehicle first.
    You didn't need that excitement last night, did you?

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    1. Definitely NOT. It really was a blessing though. This morning I even thought it might be a blessing for the other people who had stuff stolen because a van is a lot easier to find than the smaller stuff taken out of the other cars. The police said they have a pretty good idea who it might have been.

      The weirdest thought I had, and I chalk this up to being a writer, was that I was now a footnote in someone's police record.

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  2. I always hate it when I become a statistic--there's just no good way to do that. I'm so glad your van is back and you don't have to buy a new one and deal with insurance on top of moving! Creepy about them doing it while you were home and all. Just act casual and no one will notice you, I guess.

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    1. Very creepy. I guess another car was stolen from up the street earlier in the week and also dumped just a few miles away.

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  3. I'm glad you got it back so quickly.

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  4. Wow! I would have been in disbelief, too. I mean, who thinks the next time they get out of their car that when then come back it will be stolen? I hope the police find it soon!

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    1. I know! The good news is they did find it last night.

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  5. I'm glad that you got your car back. There was a somewhat scary incident that happened here in Salt Lake City that I saw on the news two days ago. A man walking to his car was approached by two men he didn't knew who pulled a gun on him. They demanded the keys to his car or they would kill him (of course he gave them the keys). Then they took off in it. The police went on a manhunt for the two men and apprehended them later that day in the stolen vehicle after a high speed chase. There have also been cars stolen out of the parking lot in my apartment complex where I live, and where I work. My boss' car was stolen and wasn't recovered for months. They found it abandoned on the Texas border to Mexico.

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    1. Wow! At least I was happily oblivious for the actual theft. I really do feel blessed that we got it back in less than 24 hours. Although, they think it was used to steel some sheet rock from a near by construction site. I can see me getting pulled over in the future when they decide it WAS my van but forget that I didn't have possession of it at the time. Good thing we're moving!

      It sounds like you live in a scary place. You just never know, do you?

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  6. If the key is locked in the car and you lose your keys how will you get that key anyway? Heaven knows we don't use valets! :)

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  7. We don't either. I use it to turn the car on to warm up on early mornings and then I lock it back up. The van is warm when I'm ready to go, but locked while I'm in the house. It used to make sense, but now I know better.

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  8. Glad you got your van back! I never lock my car - but I live in a very small town and half the time I don't even lock my door, except at night.

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  9. It is a sad thing your van was stolen but ad good thing and a blessing it was returned.

    Call me the conspiracy theorist, but methinks the bandits planned their spree for that time for a reason. Lots of folks were in their homes paying close-or-not-so-close attention to the VP debate. Or they were just brazen knuckleheads.

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  10. I know exactly how those few minutes feel when you're trying to reenact where you left the car and deciding whether or not it was stolen. I'm glad you got your van back. Some criminals are just so brazen. I'm with Angela, they probably figured people would be busy watching the debate.

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  11. Wow, I'm so glad the police managed to find it! At least you got it back although it must have been really traumatic realising you'd been robbed.

    Jai

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