Here's a story......

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Today was pretty much a normal boring day.  Ron let me sleep until noon, while he got started working on his garage.  I just hung around in bed, as I do every day, with periods of getting up and getting on the pute, until it was time to go weigh in at my TOPS meeting.  Much to my surprise, I had lost 2 more pounds!  I didn't think that I would have, what with eating better suppers and our big cookout and all, but I did, so I was happy about that.  After that, we went up to Arby's and got sandwiches - me a Pecan Chicken Salad Wrap, Ron a Reuben Sandwich - and baked potatoes for our supper.  We came home, doctored the potatoes up with more butter and re-zapped them, and that was supper, and that was our big thrilling day.

The Story
Ron went out Monday morning to open the windows on the car before we left to go to the doctor's, and he discovered that the driver's side door on both our vehicles were open.  One was backed in, the other wasn't, so the driver's side doors were beside each other.  Now, the doors were latched, not wide open, but they were definitely shut firmly the night before.  We aren't that bad!  We've lived here for 25 years, and we've never, ever locked our cars here in our own driveway.  Hell's afire, we've left the garage open on occasion!  We are right here on the highway, and we've never had any kind of a problem.  Never.
Evidently, all that has changed.
Ron noticed that the console in his truck was knocked askew, but nothing seemed to be missing out of the truck. It was broken when we bought the truck, but that isn't common knowledge. The only thing that was missing out of my car was his motorcycle jacket - his leather jacket - that he had received for his 50th birthday from our dear friend Teresa (she had also gotten Corgan a matching one!).  He had put his jacket into my car when he drove his bike to church on Sunday, thinking he might need the room in his saddlebag if he went to the store after church.  But he hadn't taken the jacket back out of the car, because he's on vacation this week and there wasn't a need to put it back in/on/with the bike.
Ron fretted and fretted over this all day Monday, while we were out (driving me crazy) even though we weren't going to do anything about it - we certainly had no kind of proof and had no plans of calling the cops.  When we got back home, he did get to talk to the next door neighbor a little bit, and calmed down a little more.  I joined them outside for a little bit, meeting the neighbors for the first time, and we all stood around talking for quite a while, until my back started hurting too bad, and I came back in.

The neighbors told us that their son and his girlfriend had gone outside to smoke around 1:30 in the morning and that those two had seen someone in our driveway, around and in our vehicles.  Someone called to "him" from the road in front of the house, which is empty right now, on the other side of them and "he" went high-tailing down the road carrying a black jacket toward the dude who called "him."  Hmmmm.
Well, I guess that little mystery is solved.  What a crock, though.  Was this just two dudes walking from Felicity who decided to try their luck on the cars they passed, or was this part of something bigger?  Should we be worried now?  Should we start being way, Way, WAY more paranoid about 'around our house'?
THEN the electricity went out, for seemingly no reason!!  No thunder, no lightning, no rain, just - poof - two short bursts, and it's out.  For good.  Seemed like good, anyway.  It was two and a half hours before it came back on.
During that time, Ron and I went outside again for a while - it was much nicer outside than inside - and after it got dark, I came in because I couldn't read any longer and Ron stayed outside.
I was sitting in my recliner and he was in the front yard, around his motorcycle, when suddenly BOOM there was a tremendous gunshot.  I was so frightened - I was sure that someone had shot Ron right in our front yard! - that I made myself wrench the footrest down of my recliner and hurried out to find out what the hell just happened.  Luckily, it was just the neighbor shooting a "warning shot" to let people know the people around here are watching out for each other now.
So, Ron and I and the neighbors were talking again, and they told us that the neighbor in the brick house - 3 houses down from us - had been hit, too, Sunday night/Monday morning.  This brick house is on the other side of the empty house I mentioned earlier.  Evidently, not only was her car unlocked, but she had left her debit card in her car, and these guys got it.  Somehow, they got a car and got up to Bethel - the BP (Lykin's) right on the corner - and used the stolen debit card for around $500 worth of stuff.  What, exactly, of course we don't know.  How and why this was not questioned by the employees at this time of the morning is another thing, too!!  I just can't believe that.  I was stunned as they were telling us that.
Maybe we do have a little more to worry about....

Yes, we have at least started locking our vehicles, even though there really isn't anything in them.