OT: Burglar!

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Yes. Well. If it isn't one thing, it's another.

I had to go out of town to do some work. On the way back, using a rental car, I had a flat tire on the highway. Before AAA got there, another local dude pulled up. His truck had scrawled on the back "Mobile Mechanic" and a phone number. Well this seemed like the kind of person who'd be sent by one of the other services, so I asked him, brightly, "Were you sent by AAA?"

"Oh no," he says, "I work independently. I saw you were broken down, so I thought I'd see if you need any help."

I told him AAA was on the way and thanked him. When the guy from AAA came he said that there are so many breakdowns on that stretch of highway, there's plenty of work for everyone.

Still had a hundred miles to go before I got home. On that little bitty spare tire. Oh well. Made it. Things seemed OK. Got ready to take the car back, a caravan, me and another person to drive me back. Relative in hospice care at home asleep. Process may take forty-five minutes or so.

When we get back from the airport, car has a flat in the driveway. Oh noes! Well, I'll change this one. Meanwhile some odd stuff is going on in the house. "Has somebody been here?" Asking relative, she says that somebody was banging on both outside doors, for quite a while, but she can't see, and she can't get up, either.

We looked around. One of my laptops was gone (the one that I'd taken to work earlier) and some jewelry had been taken.

Oh. Dear.

I had to report the stolen laptop to my employer. And to the police. The jewelry was mostly of sentimental value (old watches, etc.). Police came. Reports, fingerprint dusting, all the usual.

It's been quite a long while since we've been victims of burglary, and just as then, it is the sense of being violated in your own space that's so creepy about it. We felt very lucky that my relative was not harmed, she wasn't even aware, she said, that anyone came in the house. But it does put us in a very curious situation.

How to juggle it will be the next challenge.