Hoodlums

Last Saturday night my wife took me into San Francisco to go to a clubbing, she was the designated driver. We had a great time but when we got to our cars parked on 10th Street between Harrison and Bryant, there was a pile of glass in the sidewalk outside of the back door of our friends car. My wife immediately went to her Beetle and checked all of the windows but everything was intact.

We turned around to look up and down the street and at every parking spot except for ours, there were piles of glass or a car with a window busted out.. We went back over to our friends car, she had lost her GPS and her cell phone and the thieves had even took a hand full of mini muffins out of a container we had brought to munch on. The people down the street who just got to their car weren’t missing anything because someone had broken into their car a week before and stolen their stereo but still had their window busted out.

We theorize that the reason they didn’t break into my wife’s car was that she still had a tape deck, the only thing they could see through the windows were her tapes. Who in their right mind would want tapes? We were thankful but angry that someone would do this.

I’ve left the war zone but even here in the States, I can’t let my guard down. This event broken my compliancy, my warm self assurance in being back home. There are still beasts in the world, whether in a war zone or not.

One good thing that happened, I found a purse lying in the road, in the middle of a pile of glass and there was a check book inside. I called the number and the owner was still up the street, the bride and I walked it back to her.

It‘s funny how this didn‘t even make a blip on the news, the girl who owned the purse was parked on another street over, on my side of the street alone, there were probably ten cars broken into, I wonder if it was the same on the her street?

Google News searches have turned up nothing. On our street alone, 10 people had a possible life changing event. Yet I can’t find a single story about a rash of break ins. So I’m putting my high Google ranking up with the story so it doesn't get forgotten. From the people who I talked to Saturday night/Sunday morning, this is a regular occurence. There’s a new Police Chief in town, I’m hoping if enough people talk about this, maybe he’ll take notice and I won't be afraid for my car when I come into town.