Fortress South Austin

"Get the shotgun" Shannon said. "The TV is gone."

That's how I woke up at 5:15 on Friday morning.

Sometime after I turned out the lights upstairs at 1 a.m. and when Shannon woke up at 5 a.m., some son of a bitch pulled the screen off a window on the back porch, crawled through the window (which had been unlocked), grabbed our 46-inch TV (not yet paid off) and Shannon's purse and departed through the back door.

They did this while we were all asleep upstairs, my wife, my two young children and me. I even had the door open — When we moved into the big house back in 2004, I was freaked out for several nights because I did not like sleeping upstairs where I could not hear what was happening downstairs. I got used to it, somewhat, but would always sleep with the door open, obviously to little success.

The taking of the TV was an insult. The taking of Shannon's purse was a huge inconvenience and a bigger stab at her sense of privacy and well-being. But the coming into my house … that is unforgivable. I want the bastard caught.

It is true that we had become terribly lax about our security. All the windows facing the backyard were unlocked. And the backyard was easily accessible because our gate had collapsed and I hadn't yet fixed it. We lived in a safe neighborhood, I thought. There's no real access, save for one big road in and out. People don't go through our neighborhood. The only people here are
… our neighbors.

I got to admit, I'm positive we were targeted by somebody in the neighborhood. Possibly somebody close enough to know when I come home from work, and when I turn the lights off. After all, who else is going to break into our house in the middle of a snowstorm when the streets are so iced over that people wouldn't go to work? Perhaps someone who knew that my immediate neighbor's dogs would be inside on such a cold night?

Yes, the next morning, the bastard's bootprints were there in the snow, all over my back porch.

By 6 a.m. we had the debit card, the bank account, the credit cards all canceled. We had a fraud alert put out on Shannon's finances. Later that day we would sign up for a credit monitoring service for her. We had the cell phone shut down and replaced by that afternoon. We had the satellite radio receiver shut down.

And we had our one real victory, when Shannon put on her coat and found her keys in the pocket. We had feared they were taken as well, which would have been an extraordinary inconvenience.

And within 12 hours of finding my TV gone … I had a new one, a bigger one, sitting in its place. How about that? That's a big "fuck you" to the person who thought they were ruining my Super Bowl weekend. This one is big enough that one person can't carry it off.

The security is a little slower in coming. The windows are locked, of course, the shades pulled. The fence will be repaired by the end of the weekend. The security system is still being researched, but we'll have one, too. In the meantime, I've set up a few security touches of my own.

And, one more point, when Shannon said "get the shotgun" … I did. 

There's no victims at Fortress South Austin. Just some pissed-off Texans.

Comments

[Beth]

Rusty's Zune and about $60 he had in ones and fives were stolen from his truck over the Christmas holidays. We too believed we live in a safe neighborhood -- often we forget to lock the door before we go to bed at night, the kids run wild through the neighborhood on nice days, I run alone at all hours of the night, and we never locked our vehicle doors. We make sure all doors are locked now, but I refuse to let scum make me live a life of fear. I'm still going to run and I'm still going to let the kids run wild.

[Lee]

You have the sympathies of the Bridgichols household. On Halloween Day a few years ago, someone kicked in our front door and stole some jewelry. It wasn't much — the real anger is not from possessions taken, but the feeling of having a place that is supposed to be your sanctuary violated. It's knowing that some bastard was in your home, uninvited.

But even we can't imagine how terrifying it must have been knowing he was in the house while you were asleep.

You'll eventually be able to let the anger go. Just console yourself with the knowledge that someday, karma will catch up to that dude.

[Lee]

Oh, and thanks for letting me know you actually own a shotgun. I'll make sure I'm well-behaved next time y'all throw a party.

[shannon]

Lee--
It's my father's old shotgun. We don't so much 'own' it as we 'inherited' it. Don't worry, we're not working on a stockpile :)

[Julie Thomas]

Hey was it me or Sarah who woke up in the middle of the night at Grandma's house yelling "David go get your gun!!"

I don't remember. I think it was Sarah though.