Yeah, well, I don't know who we exactly fucked around with, but MelRo came home from her booty call to discover our front door had been pried open with a crowbar and kicked in. She called me in the midst of it, and I left Sparky's immediately trying to wrap my head around it. I spend the entire cab ride (thanks again Sparky for being so great!) just saying it over and over in my head: "our apartment was broken into".
What they actually stole was somewhat ridiculous. At least of my stuff. They ignored the mediocre turntables, nice stereo, extensive piles of CD's, and pricey MPC machine, but emptied out my DJ bag and stole it (there was a cartridge inside). Then they appeared to fill the bag with the Playstation (MelRo's) and the Dreamcast (mine). They didn't take any of my games, though Tony Hawk 2 was inside the machine. And there was a memory card inside one of the controllers. They also took BOTH of my cameras. My total is approximately $350 in goods. Nothing super important -- just annoying. MelRo faired a bit worse, since she had some jewelry taken that had monetary and sentimental value.
We sat around for 2 hours after the first set of cops left, waiting for the forensic guy to show up. We gave up and took to the futon to sleep. About 20 minutes after dozing off, the buzzer rang. We let the nice moustached cop inside (are there any Chicago cops that DONT have moustaches?) and he dusted some various objects, then he took our prints. Then he left around 1:30 am.
Luckily I already called in to work and said I would be late. I wanted to make sure I was around when maintenance showed up in the morning to replace our door. Oh yeah, did I mention that we're sleeping in an apartment with an unlocked door? I made a makeshift barricade with little weight, and I felt like a 10 year old building a fort -- I sprinkled shoes and boots around the door so if someone comes in they would trip and make a noise. I'm also breaking my cardinal rule of sleeping with the hallway door closed -- I want to make sure I'd head the front door opening and knocking my precariously placed desk chair off the stool.
It's rather surreal. The only thing I feel right now is strong agitation. I'm not really that torn up about losing some of my property, since renter's insurance will hopefully cover at least some of the cost. I'm thinking I might just sell all my Dreamcast games and combine it with the insurance money to buy a Playstation 2 which has a DVD player. I might take the money for the bag and the cartridge and buy a bigger record case which holds more LPs. And then I'll replace the cameras. Maybe just one of them even. Who knows.
I mean, it's just stuff. Even the stuff with huge sentimental value is just stuff. What's frightening is the relative ease they had in entering our life. The place was a mess -- indicators of who we are were strewn all over.
It was probably a couple of punks who need some money to get high. Or even to pay rent, I suppose. Were they adults? Were they teenagers? What did they say when they came in? Maybe there was only one?
I've had a lot of incidents lately in my life where my trust in people was eroded or I was betrayed -- not necessarily maliciously, but definitely things have happened which have made me question what do I really think about people and their ability to act honestly. I don't really know.
I let strangers into my life on a daily basis by writing in this journal. I've let people I barely know sleep in my apartment. If they really wanted something from me, they probably could have just asked. They didn't have to steal from me -- maybe I would have given them something. Possibly not as much as they took, but at least they wouldn't have a detective looking for them.
Car horns keep blaring, even well past midnight. There are teenagers smoking pot outside of my window. I live in a fairly "nice" neighborhood and get robbed. That's the breaks really. I knew that's how life operated when I signed onto the deal, so I have no one to blame but myself. Though I might yell at my fcking landlord some for never properly fixing the front door which is supposed to lock and for not installing more secure locks in the doors.
I've felt off-kilter and unbalanced since Monday or so. I'm not sure if this will make things worse, or if this is what I was already anticipating, so now I'll settle down.
What they actually stole was somewhat ridiculous. At least of my stuff. They ignored the mediocre turntables, nice stereo, extensive piles of CD's, and pricey MPC machine, but emptied out my DJ bag and stole it (there was a cartridge inside). Then they appeared to fill the bag with the Playstation (MelRo's) and the Dreamcast (mine). They didn't take any of my games, though Tony Hawk 2 was inside the machine. And there was a memory card inside one of the controllers. They also took BOTH of my cameras. My total is approximately $350 in goods. Nothing super important -- just annoying. MelRo faired a bit worse, since she had some jewelry taken that had monetary and sentimental value.
We sat around for 2 hours after the first set of cops left, waiting for the forensic guy to show up. We gave up and took to the futon to sleep. About 20 minutes after dozing off, the buzzer rang. We let the nice moustached cop inside (are there any Chicago cops that DONT have moustaches?) and he dusted some various objects, then he took our prints. Then he left around 1:30 am.
Luckily I already called in to work and said I would be late. I wanted to make sure I was around when maintenance showed up in the morning to replace our door. Oh yeah, did I mention that we're sleeping in an apartment with an unlocked door? I made a makeshift barricade with little weight, and I felt like a 10 year old building a fort -- I sprinkled shoes and boots around the door so if someone comes in they would trip and make a noise. I'm also breaking my cardinal rule of sleeping with the hallway door closed -- I want to make sure I'd head the front door opening and knocking my precariously placed desk chair off the stool.
It's rather surreal. The only thing I feel right now is strong agitation. I'm not really that torn up about losing some of my property, since renter's insurance will hopefully cover at least some of the cost. I'm thinking I might just sell all my Dreamcast games and combine it with the insurance money to buy a Playstation 2 which has a DVD player. I might take the money for the bag and the cartridge and buy a bigger record case which holds more LPs. And then I'll replace the cameras. Maybe just one of them even. Who knows.
I mean, it's just stuff. Even the stuff with huge sentimental value is just stuff. What's frightening is the relative ease they had in entering our life. The place was a mess -- indicators of who we are were strewn all over.
It was probably a couple of punks who need some money to get high. Or even to pay rent, I suppose. Were they adults? Were they teenagers? What did they say when they came in? Maybe there was only one?
I've had a lot of incidents lately in my life where my trust in people was eroded or I was betrayed -- not necessarily maliciously, but definitely things have happened which have made me question what do I really think about people and their ability to act honestly. I don't really know.
I let strangers into my life on a daily basis by writing in this journal. I've let people I barely know sleep in my apartment. If they really wanted something from me, they probably could have just asked. They didn't have to steal from me -- maybe I would have given them something. Possibly not as much as they took, but at least they wouldn't have a detective looking for them.
Car horns keep blaring, even well past midnight. There are teenagers smoking pot outside of my window. I live in a fairly "nice" neighborhood and get robbed. That's the breaks really. I knew that's how life operated when I signed onto the deal, so I have no one to blame but myself. Though I might yell at my fcking landlord some for never properly fixing the front door which is supposed to lock and for not installing more secure locks in the doors.
I've felt off-kilter and unbalanced since Monday or so. I'm not sure if this will make things worse, or if this is what I was already anticipating, so now I'll settle down.