The One About The Stolen i-Pod

Here it is four days until my wedding. The engagement photos ran in the newspapers in Rochester, Alexandria, and Albert Lea this past Sunday. There were a few people that saw it from work and had to give me a hard time for saying I was an accountant. I tried to explain to them that you really can't say Accounts Payable, Disbursements and Travel Management Customer Service Representative in a small blip about the engagement.

Rachel's i-pod was stolen out of our truck this week. It had to have happened at home, because when we drive anywhere else we lock it and click the thing one more time so the truck honks and we're certain it locks. At home we don't do that. So I watched someone walking towards the garage door and I was on the phone with Rachel and I remember telling her that someone was about to knock on the door. No one knocked, I check the back to see if they were cutting through the yards, and no one was there. I looked out the front and didn't see anyone, so I just shrugged it off. The guy didn't come into the house and there's nothing in the garage worth taking. It wasn't until a few days later that I noticed the i-pod was gone. It's frustrating thinking about living like you're in Fort Knox. We're going on our honeymoon and with people stealing out of cars in the driveway, there's not much stopping them from entering the house while you're away. I made arrangements with the neighbors to watch over things, so I feel more comfortable about leaving.

I talked to a few people about this and everyone has had something similar happen. I find that it's most frustrating when you're in a group of people that you know and something turns up missing. One talked about an MP3 player disappearing from the volleyball locker room in high school. She was listening to it on the way in, put it in her bag, showered, came out and it was gone. Someone from her team took it. In the military things were stolen all the time. As a Private my poncho was stolen from someone within the platoon, I asked the squad leader, he suggested I find one unsecured and take it. Occasionally we would have a very vigilant leader who would do a shake-down of the whole platoon in order to recover absconded items, but rarely would they find them.

It's hard not to take the victim role here, psychologically. I mean, we were victimized, something was taken from us wrongfully and it shouldn't have happened. But statistically, everyone is a victim of petty crime, and it was a crime of opportunity. The truck was unlocked and they stole the first thing of value that caught their eye. So statistically something is stolen every so often from everyone. I'm reminded of the old saying, "Don't be a statistic." So we'll make sure we lock our car doors, even at home, from now on. We'll double check the door locks, just to be sure. We'll make sure the neighbors are well informed of suspicious activity. And Apple will be happy to know that we'll have to replace the i-Pod.