Home Invasion

I was only gone for 2 hours on Friday, but he (she, they?) took the opportunity to break in, ransack our things and take a few larger ticket items. When I walked in the front door, everything seemed in place on the first floor, but our cat Savoy was acting like something was wrong... like she usually acts when our other cat Tibby is locked in a room by mistake or she just can't find him. So we take off up the stairs to look for him and that's when I see my jewelry box and our change container all over the bed in the guest room. I glanced in the office and saw the file cabinet drawers all slightly open and the door to the third floor open too. I called Charlie to ask him if he had been home during the day, if he had been looking for something in the guest bedroom, if he was in a hurry to get out and didn't have a chance to clean some things up. The second he said no, I knew that someone had been in our house.

He called the police and came home shortly after. The police called me to tell me to get out of the house and watch for someone to leave. When they showed up, they went into the house, guns raised, yelling "Police! Anybody in here!?" When they didn't find anyone, Charlie and I went in to assess the damage. They took some of our things, video cameras, an MP3 player and our laptop, but what they took that can't be replaced is the security and privacy that HOME implies. The feeling of realizing that some stranger has been through your drawers, walked through your bedroom, terrified your cats and snuck into your house in the middle of the morning is disgusting to me. As I'm sitting in the office typing this, I'm looking at all the black dust the fingerprint Crime Team left on the file cabinet and feeling slightly more paranoid at every little noise I hear in my house.

You don't realize how much safety you felt just from being in your own house until someone comes in and takes that from you. It's a good thing that God is our Safe Harbor, because no one can steal that security away.