I started blogging January 2008 and have very much enjoyed sharing my life with anyone looking for a good laugh. A couple weeks ago I was meandering through 20sb.net and signed up for their annual blog swap and was paired with Jenny. Shortly thereafter, our conversation regarding blog topics ensued and in the end, we both decided we could have some fun blogging about the scariest thing that ever happened to us.
Now, we’ve all been scared out of our wits at one point or another in our lives, right? Imagine my surprise when I tried to weed through my memory bank to pick a good scary memory and came up short. Boo! Then it hit me and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this immediately!
When I was 24, I moved to a very unique apartment. It was a private residence and on the grounds was a carriage house that the owners transformed into two apartments. My next door neighbor was great and I loved living there – for the first 3 or 4 months anyway. One day, I was at work and got a phone call from my next door neighbor. We had been robbed! I’ll never forget that moment; even now when I think about it my heart skips a beat. I could hear the panic in her voice as she told me I had to come home. Fortunately, I didn’t live too far from work and thank God the cops must have been on lunch break because they would have had multiple reasons to pull me over; swerving, speeding, running lights. Hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, right?
When I got home, my heart was pounding out of my chest because I had no idea what I was going to come home to. My mind was picturing a complete and total invasion of my home. My privacy. My space; stolen TV, things thrown everywhere, pictures and mementos broken and thrown all over the place, clothes piled in random spaces, and doors and windows broken. Fortunately, my mind’s picture was worse then what I actually encountered. My door was busted in and lying on the floor, a few things had fallen off the walls, but nothing too major. The most frustrating thing was I couldn’t find my cats. I had no idea how long it had been since my lovely visitors had left and was scared to death my cats had gotten out, because on their way out, my visitors weren’t kind enough to pick my door up off the floor. Jerks! Later that evening I found my cats. They were huddled not only under my bed, but had clawed their way up into my box spring and were hanging out there.
That happened November 2006. Fast forward to November 2007, one week short of the “My House Got Broken Into for the First Time” anniversary. It was in the middle of the day and I had stopped at home on my lunch break and guess what? Can you guess? Yup, I had been broken into once again and this time they took my laptop and, once again, busted my door down off the hinges. (Cats were eventually found, yet again, under the bed).
The second time, I felt more anger and down right rage, then fear. I gave my landlord a piece of my mind and moved out of that apartment very quickly.
Getting robbed sure did scare the hell out of me and it took me a while to feel truly safe and secure, even in my new apartment. However, it did teach me one valuable lesson; scary things are bound to happen to everyone, we can’t change that. What we can change is how we react to the situation. It’s like Randy Pausch used to say, “We can’t change the cards we’re dealt; just how we play the game.”
Thanks for reading and if you want to hear more about the life of a blonde, single, 20-something, learning to navigate her way through this world, feel free to visit me at http://smileygirl-2008begins.blogspot.com/
A great big huge thanks to Jenny for hosting me, it’s been great fun!
Oh wow.
ReplyDeleteMy aunt was robbed once. And on the way to her house, I saw the robber. But I didn't think he was a robber. Just a guy with a bandaged hand and a bag of crap.
Being robbed is truly frightening. I can't believe it happened to you TWICE! My house got broken into while I was in high school. Stupid theives made off with over 50,000$ worth of jewelry from my parent's room. The sad thing is that I acutally think I went to school with the person/people who did it. I just have this inkling...
ReplyDeleteIt truly was very scary for me, especially since they never caught the people who did it. I learned my lesson though - you only have to rob me twice before i say, "See ya!" :)
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