Entering the garage from the house on my way to work, the sky still dark, I saw the garage door open, and the doors of the cars closed but not latched shut.  I knew instantly what had happened, and my heart sank into my stomach.  Inside the cars, the center console lids were open and the console contents scattered on the seats.  After the chili chocolate party at church, mom had led the way into the house, carrying the leftover chocolate cake, followed by me and Dad; I had carried the crock pot.  Dad and I turned off the garage light, but we forgot to lower the garage door.  And our cars had been burglarized in the night.  The burglar left the car doors unlatched to avoid the noise of shutting them.  They knew what they were doing—not their first burglary.  As a city attorney, I am well aware of how many hundreds of cars are burglarized in my town every year, always by drug addicts looking to finance their next fix—they care about little else.  As a rule, I always lower the garage door, and I always lock my car, even in the garage.  But this time I was lazy and neglectful, and paid the price.  I checked both cars, and nothing of importance was missing, because we kept nothing of importance in our cars.  And the contents of the garage were all accounted for.  But I felt so angry at this person who tried to take from us something that was not theirs, that entered our personal space, the interior of our cars, uninvited.  I felt violated and vulnerable.  I felt sick at my simple but stupid mistake, which had allowed a neighborhood troller to skulk into the sanctity of our home.  We will never make that mistake again.  Fortunately, we had locked the door into the house.  Fortunately, we kept nothing valuable in the cars.  Fortunately, the burglar did no damage to the cars and stole nothing from the garage.  The only important item missing was my library card.  But I still feel angry.

(Image above by TheDigitalWay from Pixabay.)