The One That Got Away

I only have a few hours before the sun goes down and I again become mortified to be home alone. We will see how I feel after this post if I’ll actually be able to stay and clean, or if I’m going to have to run away, haha. The sad thing is, it’s true. So here’s what happened….

Last Wednesday, February 15, I had the day off because my parents were coming in town that night. I spent all day cleaning. Literally all day, from 10 am to 4:30 pm. The house looked amazing! Jim came home from work at around 5:30 and started to tell me about what was going on at the end of the street. There were a few cop cars, and a few all black under cover cars at the house two houses down across the street. Jim said there were cops everywhere and a couple guys hand cuffed on the ground. Fast forward to about 6:45 when I went outside to tell Jim I was ready to leave because I really just HAD to go to Bath and Body works to get some “spring soap” before my parents get in town. I know, I know, I’m a soap snob and we only had Christmas soap left!! Anyway, we left about 5 minutes later down the opposite end of the street.

After Bath and Body we had to pick up my parents from the air port. Jim had asked me while we were at the air port if I wanted to take my parents stuff back to the house and then dinner, or just go straight to dinner. I was starving (go figure) so I said dinner and then home. Now it’s about 9:15 and when we pulled in I could hear Chief going CRAZY in the house. Usually when we get home he knows its us and he will bark maybe once or twice, just to say hi and then he comes out through his doggy door or he waits on his bed in the kitchen for us. My mom wasn’t Chief’s biggest fan so I wanted to go in and calm him down so that my mom wouldn’t freak out when she came inside. Everything was fine when I got inside and Chief was just excited to see us. While Jim, my mom, and my dad were getting suitcases inside and getting everything situated I saw a couple things in the family room that I had forgotten to take to my bedroom earlier so I wanted to hurry and  put those away before my mom thought that I was messy.

Chief has a track record of chewing things like TV remotes, base boards, our ataman, shoes… you get the picture. We have a baby gate that keeps him locked in the kitchen, and down the hall to our bedroom. we keep all the doors in the hallway closed because he has eaten a Costco size thing of paper towels out of the pantry before too. So this is what things look like for Chief on a regular day.

And that’s what it looked like when we got home too. How was I suppose to know anything had gone on? When I opened the door to the bedroom I saw a bunch of white stuff on the ground before I even got the chance to turn the light on. My first thought was “Holy crap, Chief!! He ate a bunch of stuff out of the garbage can again!” Then it hit me. I was the one that had opened the door, Chief hadn’t been in there. Then I realized all the drawers were opened and it was my clothes everywhere. I imidiately started to scream for Jim (on the complete opposite end of the house) we met in the kitchen and down the hall Jim and my dad went. The sliding glass door was open just enough to get a body through. It’s really heavy, and it doesn’t slide really easy so you have to put your whole body into opening and closing it.

We had been coming and going all day through all the doors in the back of the house and we had left two doors unlocked. We didn’t put the bar to the sliding glass door down, and the laundry room door was unlocked too. Needless to say, they were in our bedroom and were clearly looking for fast money. They only things stolen were a couple of my watches, and a charm bracelet. On Saturday morning when Jim went to leave for tennis we learned they stole his tennis bag with tennis balls and his tennis racket. We didn’t have any cash hiding anywhere so they really didn’t get much. The things that they took were really weird, I mean I had a bracelet from Tiffany’s sitting with my watches, a diamond necklace in a box that was on the same shelf, but they didn’t take those. I kinda feel weird listing other valuable things we had that they didn’t take because well, this is the web and those creepers could be creeping my blog!!

I think this picture helps with explaining what could have happened. The gate was open just a little bit so we think that they had tried the other two doors first. I honestly can’t remember if the laundry room door to the hall was open or not, but I have been in the habit of leaving it open because I like  Chief to have more room, and I know how much he looooooves looking out windows. Either way, Chief was on the other side of the door and no one would venture in uninvited with Chief. He looks scary, a big black 100lb dog, and even if you don’t see him, his bark is alarming. I think that after they saw/heard chief and then saw that the bedroom door was unlocked and that the door to the hall was closed, it was an easy hit. Chief couldn’t get into the bedroom, unfortunately. As you can see from the picture that there is an irrigation ditch that runs right behind our house and you can get into it from either end of the street. No one knows you are back there, and it’s not very deep. It’s probably 5 feet from the top of our fence to the ground on the other side. Then with the stairs to the slide, easy easy easy.

Once the cops finally arrived they were able to find 2 finger prints, we are just hoping that they aren’t our own. We asked the officer if she thought that the incident at the end of the street had anything to do with our house. She checked the report from earlier and it turns out that the guys in handcuffs use to live in that house and were trying to get in to get the rest of their stuff. Unfortunately, she had run into the prior week and they “weren’t very good guys”. We left around 6:50 and the last officer left them at 7:11. There’s a good chance that it was them because they knew the neighborhood, but she also said it could have been as random as someone walking down the the ditch and seeing that the latch was up. Chief has graduated from being locked in the kitchen to fullllllllll range of the house. He loves it, he even treated himself to 4 boxes of girl scout cookies. I seriously couldn’t be more grateful for my dog. Had he not been here things would have been a lot worse. I’m so happy that no one was harmed and that the things that were taken were only material and can essentially be replaced. I do happen to be the biggest baby now. I’m terrified of everything, jump at the sound of ice falling in the freezer, and I have nightmares nearly every night. But we are doing everything we can to make our house safer, and I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job.

*I did not proof read this because honestly the story freaks me out*