P.C. Shannon

On Wednesday night, both Caroline and I had our cars broken into. This has happened to me before, but this time was much more unsettling. Previously, some crackhead smashed the window on my pickup truck and nabbed my portable CD player, which I paid $20 for at Best Buy. The real pain there was having to replace the window.

In the current circumstance, our cars were sitting in front of our house, and there was no “breaking in” per se as both cars were unlocked. The theives—who we figure were just some kids from the neighborhood—took some CDs from my car, nothing from hers. The unsettling part is that this happened in our tranquil little subdivision miles from downtown and other sketchy areas.

I keep thinking about the part in Fahrenheit 9/11 where Michael Moore goes to Canada and starts walking into people’s homes to see if they lock the doors or not (the film makes it seem as though there are no locked homes in Canada). He starts a conversation with one guy, asking the man has ever experienced a break-in. Just some liquor, probably taken by local teenagers.

I guess that’s my conundrum. I’m not really upset about the actual theft—although it is annoying to have to repurchase like 8 CD—my mind is filled with images of home invasions and Elizabeth Smart and so on. (And for all the worried parents out there, we do lock the doors at night.) But I don’t want to have to lock my car at night. I want to believe that we live in an area where such precautions are unnecessary.

But clearly that’s not the case. I guess the solution is to only keep burned copies of my CDs in the car.