Paranoia

A Story:

It was a dark and stormy June night. The rain was pounding outside my window and I was sleeping like a baby, only to wake-up to a nightmare. Ok, so it wasn’t really a nightmare, but it was a very unpleasant surprise. One of my co-workers during my summer internship came over to my apartment at 8:00 in the morning as was the normal routine so we could go to work together. However this particular morning, he came bearing bad news. My car, along with six other randomly selected cars had been broken into that night.

At first I was just mad but I was quickly able to find humor in the situation. I had two large cases of CD, some books, a small bag of clothes and a plethora of other items in my car that were all left untouched. (Except by the rain of the night which did the majority of damage to the few books I had in my car, much to my dismay.) The only thing the thieves decided to claim as thier own was my CD player which hadn't worked in about two years. The raido in it worked, but I didn't listen to it much anyway since my antennae was broken off awhile back and most stations don't come in very clear.

When the cop arrived he asked if I by some random chance had the serial number. MUCH to his surpise I had the original box with all of the warranty papers. He said he'd never even come across anyone with the serial number much less the box the radio came in. He probably wouldn't have been surprised if he'd known me and my OCD a little better.

Well, despite the fact that I had the serial number and they ran a search through local pawn shops, nothing came of it. The only loss I really had was my window. I drove home to SA the next day to retrieve a $451 front passenger piece of glass that I got for $51 dollars. (My dad's brother owns a glass/car shop.) My dad used to work at the same shop so I didn't have to pay anything for labor either. In fact, I got a free dinner with my dad.

Though it was a pain to deal with, there was no permanent damage, (except to my books, again, much to my dismay.) And the thieves only got away with a CD player that was usless to me. What did I get away with? A free lesson on how to install the original radio. Now I won't have to pay for installation if I ever decide to get a new CD player. Well, hopefully not.

Another Story:

It was a quiet and peaceful August night. The wind was blowing softly and I was trying to sleep to the sound of a crying baby only to wake up to another nightmare. This time however, it really did seem like a nightmare. I was babysitting for a lawyer that I used to work for. I've been on vacation with this family and I was baby-sitting overnight while the parents celebrated their aniversary out of town. I hadn't slept much because the baby was teething and not sleeping well so she did a great job of keeping me up. At 7:30 I woke up to what sounded like the doorbell ringing, but I wasn't sure until I heard strong pounding on the front door. This was already unusual because everyone uses the side door in this house. I looked out of the upstairs window to see a cop standing at the door. I raced down the stairs in my pajamas and open the door.

"Ma'am, are you the owner of a gold Pontiac Sunfire?"
"Yes, sir I am.
"Well, it was broken into last night. Will you please come out and take a look at the damage?"

So there are two things going on in my head at this point. The first is, "I'm am honestly not surprised." You know the whole, "when it rains it pours," thing. Well, this just seemed like another event in a long line of events that were all joined together to make my life difficult. The second thing was "What in the world did they take? Surely not my radio tape player that came with the car?!?!" I started looking around my car, and sure enough...that wasn't it. I looked all over my car and couldn't find anything. This time it was the driver's window that had been knocked out. I tried the open the door, but they did such a great job of busting the window out that they jammed the door shut and broke part of the frame which is what kept me from opening the door.

I walked over to the cop to tell him that they hadn't stolen anything. Everything was in dissaray in my car but nothiong was gone. Any then it hit me. The day before I had gone to a friend's birthday party in Cameron Park and as I usually do when I am going to speacial avents, I took my digital camera with me. I very seldom take my camera out of my apartment and when I do it usually stays in my purse. Since I was at Cameron Park, I didn't bring my purse. I also never went home after the birthday party becasue I headed straight to the house I was baby-stting at. And...I didn't think to bring my camera inside.

Fortunately, I didn't loose many pictures, but I'm still upset about my camera. It was a birthday gift that I had barely had for six months. ARGH!!

Moral of the Two Stories:

So why is this titled paranoia? Wow...that was a long story to get to this point. After my car was broken into the first time, it was not that big of a deal. It was fixed fairly easily without much cost. The second time it happened was somewhat unbelievable to me, seeing as how it happened only about a month and half after the first time. The cost was a little more because of the door frame damage, but the people I baby-sat for paid for it. I think that there was more damage done to me than my car though. In the past four weeks I have have had four dreams about my car being broken into. I always park my car right outside my apartment window and I jump at nearly every sound that I hear outside to see if my car is ok. I also try to park where I can see my car from the windows at work when I am there. This is quite a trick to accomplish if you know how Baylor has changed the parking up recently and if you know where I work and where the nearest parking lot/garage is. I feel a bit unsettled though if I can't see my car. I'm hoping this will die down soon though. It already is getting a little better, but the paranioa seems to rise when I have another dream about it.

I considered apologizing for writing such a long post, and then I realized that this is my blog and I am allowed to write as much or as little as I want to. Hope you enjoyed my long story and all it's details that I am known to not leave out.