Who stole my heart?

We got robbed. I guess the official word is “burgled,” since it was our house and we weren’t there. It happened sometime between the trip to visit my mom and the trip to bury her, but we’re not exactly sure.

I know the stuff thrown on top of the linens in Sophie’s room happened after I left because I’d done the last laundry the night I left.

Tim doesn’t know if he vacuumed before the stuff was thrown around on the floor or after and he just vacuumed around it. (??? No comment.) So we’re not quite sure when it happened. When I got back, we both thought the other was throwing things around either in the haste to pack or getting interrupted in the midst of unpacking.

It wasn’t till I spotted the un-dusty ring on the dresser two days later that I put it all together. The little heart-shaped wooden box Tim had given me one Valentine’s Day was gone.

Twenty years ago, we were burgled. The un-dusty rings were the clues there, too. The police asked what was in the two stolen decorative boxes.

“One had my rocks and shells. The other had my balloons.”

“Your balloons?”

“Yes, you go to a fair and they hand out balloons, and you don’t know what to do with them. You might need a balloon so you put it in the box on your dresser.”

It took twenty years for the robbers to try our house again.

This time, they got my chunk of the Berlin Wall and the scrap of Christo’s wrapping of the Reichstag from my sister. They probably threw it away: “What’d we get? A stupid piece of concrete!” As fate would have it, my mother had another chunk of the Wall, and it now sits on my dresser.

Once we’d established we’d been robbed, we searched the house. Sophie’s the only one with recognizable things of value; leather purses, jewelry. Obvious jewelry boxes were taken. Inside was my mother’s charm bracelet, but mostly it was play jewelry. Sophie’s good stuff is with her.

The police said burglary is the worst they’ve seen in 37 years. A few weeks before, I’d been sitting at my desk by the window, and a guy approached the front door. I called out, and he said he was just going to get a drink from our outdoor faucet. With the hose attached? I told him to leave.

So what am I doing about this? We did start using the dead bolt. Maybe I’ll ask Tim to check out alarm systems.

I’d only started locking the front door a year or so ago, the same time Tim began locking the car – even in the driveway – because car break-ins were happening.

Years ago, I worked downtown. A couple times, I’d be loading packages into my arms, trying to negotiate getting out of the car, and I’d disrupt the usual routine, get too scattered. I came back to the car hours later and found the door ajar, the radio on, the car running, people listening to my music from the grass. Or the door would be closed but unlocked and the car running. Maybe people thought I was setting bait for an arrest, but I was never robbed. Got a ticket once, but never robbed.

I don’t like using the dead bolt. I’m usually lugging things outside, hands full. Now I have to put the packages down, reach for the key, turn it. Put the key away, then gather up all my stuff again.

I dislike the idea of using the dead bolt. Of a locked-up house, of a locked-up neighborhood. My friend Judith just bought two Clubs for her cars. Ken put 3-inch screws in the hinge plates on his front door. This is not the direction I would have picked for my Third Third.

I just want to be the one de-cluttering my life, not some burglar.