What was I thinking?
In hind sight, that's what I'm saying now, but in real time as the events unfolded I was so filled with adrenaline that I obviously was not thinking straight. As I arrived home from work extraordinarily early yesterday, around 2:45 in the afternoon, I notice a black eclipse is parked sideways taking up my usual spot and the spot next to me right in front of our patio gate at the back door to our apartment. There are no other cars around and at times on a Friday afternoon I have seen new people move in and out of the apartments around me. I went ahead and pulled into the closest available parking space to our unit and proceeded to exit the vehicle. I noticed that the blinds in one of our back windows that opens to the fenced patio were swinging lightly. This is not uncommon for a cat owner since most cats LOVE to sit in windows and swish their tails, thusly making the blinds swish back and forth. I proceeded a little closer to our back gate which is opened and thought to myself, “that's a little odd, I wonder if Gianni left it open a little bit and a big gust of wind has opened it even more”. I noticed that the black eclipse has its radio blasting and the windows are down. I also noticed that there is a rather good size TV and a piece of Panasonic equipment in the back seat of the car. I'm still thinking that these is probably someone moving into a surrounding apartment and continue to head toward our back door. I glance at the door and notice that it is slightly open.
My stomach drops and I realize that someone is in our apartment, in fact they are in the process of robbing us. I am now standing in our back patio and notice the window with the blinds that are gently swaying back and forth has been shattered. I glanced back at the license plat on the eclipse, but the numbers and letters are not registering. I am in a panic. The door is open and the window is smashed in and my first thought is, "Oh My God!! Benelli, I hope he hasn't run off." My second thought was I've got to get to my bedroom and grab my gun, this guy is still here and I need to protect myself or at least scare him away.
I run into the kitchen and notice something has been dragged across the floor and black marks are leading into our bedroom. I glanced at the living room and noticed that all of our electronic equipment in our entertainment center has been pulled out and is just hanging by wires in our entertainment cabinet. The TV is still there. I run into the bedroom and notice that our TV and new DVD player are not there and our video camera is lying on the floor in our bedroom.
I grab my cell phone and start looking for the cat. I dial 911, but for some reason the call does not go through. I round the bed and start reaching for my gun. I can’t find it. I pick up the landline in our bedroom and dial 911. Just then I hear tires squealing and a car driving off. I run towards the back door with the phone in my hand to go catch the license plate on the eclipse. They are too far down the alley for me to make out the numbers. The 911 dispatcher finally picks up and I report the incident. I found Benelli in our office window hiding behind the curtains. We are both a little shaken but alive.
I am shaking even now reliving the incident. There were so many things I could have and should have done differently. I could have been killed walking into our apartment and I entered the door knowing that I could face death, but I still ran in. I wanted to know that my cat was ok and I wanted to protect myself. I’m not upset about loosing our things. I’m not upset about having to clean glass and blood up all over our apartment. I’m upset that I came home in the middle of the day and there was some asshole in our apartment, rummaging through our things, bleeding all over our carpet and entertainment center, and every other room he entered. My only satisfaction, although little is that the guy cut himself climbing through our window.
I am beating myself up over not getting the damn plates on the car. The car was running, I could have taken the keys out of the ignition and really screwed the guy. Hell, I could have reached into his car and at least pulled out our two DVD players he had just stolen. He also got away with about 30 DVDs. It’s all stuff and it’s all replaceable, but it still erks me.
