Yesterday was a dreary, cold day in North Dallas, so I decided to spend the day getting back into writing and working on my novel A Mouth Full of Teeth. There is major road construction going on in my neighborhood , and the pummeling of the bulldozer outside was shaking the entire house and I just couldn't take it. So I hastily got my stuff together and did something highly uncharacteristic: I went to the Public Library.
I know, I know. It's kind of a big deal for me, which you will know if you have been following my blogs. If you're new-ish to The Path to Publication, please see this post which will explain why I don't like and don't frequent libraries.
Anyway I pretty much spent all day at the library, and pretty much took me all day just to hammer out one page of new work. It takes a while to get back in the swing of things when you've been doing nothing but tax forms for 4 months (the day job). 15 minutes before closing I packed it up, put my brand new, beautiful Asus laptop in my backpack - a Christmas present from my wonderful parents - and headed out to my car. A vicious cold front had blown in while I was inside and I was just wearing a short sleeved Raconteurs shirt and skinny jeans - no jacket to speak of. I was planning on going in to work that evening to wrap some things up, but I didn't feel like heading there yet, especially sans jacket. So I headed to the most wonderful place on earth: Target.
Since it was freezing and starting to sprinkle, I tried to park as close to the Target entrance as possible. I found a spot in a row that was right in front of the door, and about 8 spaces in. I pulled in next to a tan, old POS sedan. I glanced over at the car to make sure I was a reasonable distance away from it (as one does) and locked eyes with the dude sitting in the back seat of the car. He was a miserable looking guy, white, messy brown hair, kind of long face, about my age. Being a Texan I did the closed-lip smile of acknowledgement we all do when we make eye contact with a stranger. The dude did not return the gesture.
Well... I thought, slightly annoyed at his rudeness. I grabbed my purse, got out, locked the car and headed in to Target. I really was just planning on picking up a cheap hoodie so I'd have something to wear and then moving on with my day. But as any female and any male who knows a female will tell you, you can't just run into Target for one thing and then leave. You have to see what's new, what's on sale, what's coming.
I really only spent about 30 minutes inside. I bought my new jacket, made my way to the exit and stopped in that little area between the double doors to put my jacket on because it was now freezing balls cold. As I put my arm in through the jacket, a secret red door I had never noticed before opened and a Target person nearly walked right into me.
"Oh! I'm sorry," I said, shuffling aside.
"Oh, no, that's ok," said the Target person. She was mid-twenties, dark brown hair, freckle faced. "I was actually looking for you."
"Really??"
"Yeah. At least I think it's you. Um, do you drive a white Dodge?"
"Yeeees."
"Well, I don't want to alarm you, but we had a report of a vehicle break in on a white Dodge."
Color me alarmed. My heart clenched up and my jaw dropped. Oh no, my laptop.
"Do you want to go out and see if it was your car, and then come back and let me know? We can proceed from there."
"Yeah."
With a sinking feeling in my stomach I marched out into the cold night. There were no other cars parked around mine now. I couldn't see any damage on the drivers side. Please no, please no. Thank God my gun isn't in there anymore.
I walked around to the passenger side, and sure enough right under the front door was a glittering pile of glass. Here I let loose an internal string of curse words, most starting with "F". Knowing what I would find - or rather, wouldn't find - I inched closer to the door. My backpack, my new computer, my work of the day - was gone.
Oh, there's my window!
And then the image of the old car I had parked next to, and the miserable looking guy's face popped into my head. Jerks. While I didn't and don't have any proof, I know in my soul it was them. I know it was.
I found the Target person again and told her that it was indeed my car that had been broken into.
"Ok, well I have security footage of it happening, and I'm pretty sure I got a good shot of their license plate when they left."
Blinking back tears, I called the police and relayed to the dispatcher what had happened. About 15 minutes later an officer showed up and I lead him to my car. He asked me about what was missing, I told him about the car fool of miserables I had parked next to, and he took lots of notes.
"To be honest," he said "We're probably not going to be able to do anything. The video footage from stores usually isn't very clear, it will probably show that something that looks like a person was by your car. And if they did get a shot of the license plate, it probably won't be clear enough to tell what it says. More than likely you aren't going to get your computer back. I'm sorry to tell you that, but I just want to be realistic."
I knew that was probably the case, and he was being very nice to me. But in my head I wanted him to set up a perimeter, block off the roads and interstates, put out an APB. Call the helicopters and the dogs and send the SWAT team after them. This was my stuff. Is there no justice?
I called my best friend to tell her what had happened. She very kindly came out to meet me and check on me. When I tried to tell her what had happened again in more detail, I go to the part about my laptop being gone and I just lost it. I broke down right there in the parking lot.
It's times like that when having a friend to lean on becomes the most important thing in the world.
It's easy for me to slip into a state of anger bitterness over the whole incident, and believe me I am angry and bitter. But my friends and family have been reminding me that things could have been much worse. They only took my laptop. My work, my stories, are saved in other places. I did loose that day's work, and some pages from another time, but that was it. I had not passwords or credit card info stored on that computer yet. Most importantly however, they didn't get me.
I don't know if there's a lesson to be learned from this. There probably is one, and I will probably realize it later. Right now I'm just hurt and upset and the only thing I can do to make myself feel better is to write.
Thank you for reading. It means the world to me =)
