BREAK-IN NEWS STORY

I am terribly on edge.

Yesterday afternoon, someone broke into Vanna, our white minivan. We were going out to fill a prescription when my husband noticed that all our doors were unlocked, and the hood was popped ajar. Upon entering the vehicle, he also observed that the parking brake was disengaged and our glove compartment was gaping open.

We discovered this at around 4:00 in the afternoon. About 10 minutes later, en route to our appointment, we noticed that the dashboard clock registered a different time, 2:40. Aha...a clue! This told us that whoever tried to steal our van turned on our battery exactly two hours and forty minutes before. We make it a point to uncouple our battery every night ever since our key got stuck in the ignition. Whenever we turn the car on again, the dashboard clock displays "12:00". With careful calculation, we ascertained that whoever made the attempt was bold enough to do it at 1:30 that afternoon, in full view of everyone! Whoever this guy was, he certainly had chutzpah!

Good thing my Dodge Grand Caravan came with a theft-deterrent system. That certainly spelled the difference between success and failure. Actually, I wasn't surprised at the outcome of this first attempt at Grand Theft Auto. Our theft-deterrent system was so efficient, it was oftentimes a "trip-deterrent system" for us!

When Lorenzo got Vanna for me for my 32nd birthday, we weren't endeared to her theft-deterrent system, which required us to push a remote-controlled button attached to our key chain in order for her to start. There were times when we had to wait excruciating minutes before we heard the familiar click that meant we could start the van. This would indicate that we needed new batteries for the remote, which usually meant a mad scramble to the mall just before Radio Shack closed. Now why, you wonder, wouldn't they just buy extra batteries and spare themselves the hassle? Because the darn batteries are so infinitesimally small that we lose them as soon as we buy them.

Many times, Lorenzo and I considered having this theft-deterrent system taken off. But this would mean taking our van back to the dealership, shelling the $400 to have the stupid key taken off the ignition, and probably another $400 besides to have the whole system reconfigured. And THEN we'd reconsider. After all, what's an extra minute or so to pop the hood and uncouple the battery?

Besides, there's this whole macho mystique about an open hood. All over the country, millions of men impress millions of their female partners by the mere act of popping their bonnets, an act which somehow adds 100 points to a man's car IQ, never mind if he just mistakenly pressed the hood button instead of the gas compartment lever, and since it was already open, he might as well check the water and the oil, if only he could find where they were actually LOCATED. By this time, the lone female passenger would be reduced to putty, impressed at how MANLY her partner was dealing with "this whole car thing" (sigh!).

Anyway, I digress. Our initial ocular inspection revealed that nothing was taken from our belongings. All our jackets were still there, including Troy's new expensive Baby Gap jacket. Lorenzo's military papers were undisturbed. The top was taken off his box of office paraphernalia, but apart from this, everything else was intact. Even my glove compartment, which was gaping wide open, still had my old credit card bills. Whoever had broken in was clearly not interested in identity theft, thank goodness! I wasn't worried about my car registration being stolen, since I never keep a copy in any of my vehicles anyway. I choose to keep them in my wallet, in anticipation of robbery attempts such as this.

Which brings us to the mystery of it all. Why would this person take all the trouble of breaking into our van in an effort to steal it, and then, encountering failure, just leave everything untouched? Your regular, run-of-the-mill hoodlum would normally take off with every item that was not nailed down, or at least lash out in frustration by breaking a headlight or two.

Hmmm, it almost makes you wonder...did we have here the most improbable of oxymorons, a gentleman thief? Highly unlikely. Maybe he turned penitent upon seeing my Bible in the compartment under my seat? Even more unlikely. In all probability, the moron was probably spooked out of his malicious intentions, either by the appearance of a neighbor, or even (my favorite theory) a friendly ghost!

Laugh if you will, but my family members will attest to the time a robber entered our house at "87 gentle street" in the middle of the night, and ran off in such a fright, he forgot his slippers in the kitchen! The poor luckless fool left the front door wide open, but everything else was untouched. We were all convinced that the thief had a "close encounter of another kind" with our late Lolo. We three sisters aren't strangers to stories like this. A number of other spirits have revealed themselves to a number other guests in our house, but they never bothered us for some reason. I guess our resident status somehow granted us immunity!

All this speculation does not take away from the most important detail of all: we were very blessed that nothing was taken from us, and we thank the Lord for his protection. As it is, with all of our belongings accounted for, we still feel somewhat violated that someone had the audacity to break into our van, safely parked in our driveway, our own PERSONAL SPACE, in broad daylight!

It makes you question man's inherent nature, the soundness of his morality. Is society as we know it mired in such a cesspool of apathy, nobody bothers to teach their kids the importance of respecting other people's property anymore? Will the next generation be able to clamber out of the quagmire, or are the Elois among us slowly dwindling to the rising number of Morelocks?

As I wind up this entry in the wee hours of the morning, I see my husband descend the stairs. Lorenzo is fully dressed and decked with a warm jacket. I ask him where he is going and he says "out to the van". He goes to our fireplace and picks out a particularly nasty-looking poker. Earlier, he told me he was considering spending the night in the back seat, waiting for, even DARING the thief to come back! With his Army infantry background, working closely with the DEA and US Customs in covert operations, it wasn't such a stretch of the imagination to see Lorenzo jumping Rambo-like from Troy's car seat, raining bullets and the odd fireplace poker at anyone who comes within two meters of our minivan.

I rush to my husband in alarm, trying to talk him out of his bravado. Lorenzo gives me a smile, and a warm reassuring hug. Turns out he was just teasing. He told me he was just about to go out and move the driver's seat all the way to the front, to make it harder for anyone to sneak in comfortably. He would also turn on the heater full-blast, put the headlights on bright, and switch the hazards on besides. Finally (and for good measure), he would pump up the volume of our radio all the way to max. If anyone ever tried to engage our battery, the whole neighborhood would know.

More importantly, if this thief makes the mistake or returning to our booby-trapped van, I hope he jumps out of his skin so badly that he'd be instantly cured of his errant ways. Actually, at this point, I would happily settle for a badly damaged eardrum. Now THAT I would find most gratifying. Only then can we call it quits.

Lorenzo slips out into the foggy night. I run upstairs to our master bedroom window, making sure my husband isn't mugged on his way to our driveway. I watch him as he enters the van, keeping an eagle eye out for any suspicious shadows, ready to dash to the phone to dial 911 if needed. Given the circumstances of the past 24 hours, I do not mind erring on the side of caution. Not when my precious husband is concerned. Besides, there is no such thing as being too safe.

In this crazy world we live in, you never know.