Violation

So, sometime in the wee hours of yesterday morning, our garage was burglarized.  Luckily it was just the garage -- since the connecting door to the house was unlocked it could have easily been much worse.  They stole Allen's $500 bicycle (yes, the one with the special  noseless bicycle seat) with his helmet and gloves still on the handlebars and some random stuff from my car -- a $5 LED light, my cellphone charger, maybe a couple of CDs (though we're not sure which ones).  They had loaded my Phil & Ted's double stroller (itself a $600 item) with the $200 baby backpack and all of our power tools, but for some reason they left these in the yard instead of taking them.  So that's a blessing.  I had left the garage door open a crack thinking nobody could possibly fit beneath it, but I was wrong apparently. That's how the police think they got in.  They turned on the light, unlocked the side door, moved the recycling bin out of the way, and took what they wanted out through the side to the gate in our fence.  The police lifted a few fingerprints (they told me the fine dusting of road dirt on my car made the fingerprints much better than they would have otherwise been -- see it pays to wash your car so rarely) but I doubt they'll turn up anything.  They think this may be connected to another similar crime a few blocks away where the owners left spare keys to the brand new Titan truck in the ashtray and the thieves just drove off with the car loaded with stuff from the garage.  They had thoroughly searched all of the compartments and trunk of both of our cars and left everything in disarray.  We just don't keep much of value in our cars.  Frankly, most of the things we value highest would not fetch much on the resale market anyway.

All told, we were very lucky.  Later that afternoon, I found Allen's helmet and one glove on the side of the street around the corner from here.  We certainly will be more careful -- lock connecting door and close garage completely -- in the future.  I know that this was a pretty small crime, but I still feel anxious and upset by it.  Sarah had left for school when we discovered it, and when we told her about it later she was really upset.  She kept bursting into tears and asking why people don't just sell their own things for money instead of taking ours or why they were even born on this earth if they wanted to follow Satan's plan.  She is such a tenderhearted soul.  Comforting her helped calm me down too.  I still find myself dwelling on it and feel uncomfortable driving my own car knowing they were inside it.  I wonder how long it takes for this feeling of violation to dissipate.