Hard to trust . . .

We recently treated ourselves and upgraded our cable to a DVR box. What an awesome little invention (no more commercials!). Since then, we've been watching a ton of House, M.D. - great show, awesome acting, and very insightful observations. One thing they always say on House is "everybody lies." Now, I'm usually more of a "glass-is-half-full" kind of gal, but even I have to admit that statement is probably true. And here lately, you could almost say "everybody steals" too. At least, that's what it seems like in our neck of the woods.

Last Monday, I had a 6th grade student swipe my iPod out of our music room. Actually, swipe may not be the best word, since it implies an impulsive action. This was actually thought out enough that when the kid took MY iPod from the speaker set it was plugged into, he also replaced it with our large 6-year-old classroom mp3 player - hoping no one would notice. Eventually, the kid returned it after several guilt trips from his teacher, myself, and the other music teacher, threats from our assistant principal, and a threat to involve the police (which would have been the 2nd time in less than a week the cops would have been called for this particular class). I don't know which kid it was, and honestly, I don't want to know. I'm afraid I will treat him differently - and I don't want that. He fessed up and I have my iPod back (and I will not be taking it back to that school). Enough said.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. Last night, around 1:15 am I woke up to a car alarm going off. MY car alarm. I woke Brandon up, ran to the window, and attempted to turn the alarm off so as not to wake the neighbors. From our upstairs window I could tell that no windows had been broken and nothing looked out of the ordinary. Brandon went downstairs to check just in case. When he got to my car he realized what was wrong. My car was sitting in the parking lot of our apartment on cinder blocks with all four of my wheels gone. No joke. Someone stole the wheels off my car.


To top it off, whoever did this didn't really balance the car very well (not that I really think they cared) and my poor little Mazda has actually fallen forward off the blocks a little. You can't really tell in the picture, but part of the weight is actually resting on the bumper/curb and the right front axle. Not exactly a good thing there. We think the car falling forward and hitting the ground is probably what set off the alarm last night. So, yeah.

We have had a few blessings come from this though. First of all, it turns out that my insurance has a $50 deductible and they have been very nice about all of this. Secondly, yesterday afternoon, I did a marathon cleaning job of the inside of my car and emptied EVERYTHING out of it so that I could pick up some friends at the airport. So last night, when whoever was stealing my tires, there was absolutely nothing in the car to attract his/their attention. So, this whole thing could have been worse. Unlike my iPod though, I'm pretty sure I'm never going to see those tires again. *sigh*