I'm a statistic.

I'm now a statistic in the lovely City of St. Louis. They say St. Louis is the "most dangerous" or "least safe" or something like that, city in the US. Okay, I can buy that if you're in certain parts of the city - parts we don't live, work, play or travel into - so that has never been a huge worry for me (knock on wood).
We're also number 1 for car related crimes. This I totally buy. Until now, Cody and I have been lucky - we have not had our garage/his car broken into, nor mine messed with while parked on the street (I park on the street because I drive a clutch and they are less likely to be stolen). That is, until this weekend.
Friday night we had a rousing happy hour after work, one in which I drank the better part of a caraffe of maragritas. Being the responsible citizen I am, I called Cody to pick me up. So we left my car in the work garage downtown and he drove home. We never quite made it back downtown to pick up my car over the weekend(we only live 5 miles from my work/downtown but we were just never heading in that direction) - usually this is not a big deal. I leave my car in the work garage when we go to Florida for Thanksgiving or going out of town for a long weekend - it just seemed safe.
So this morning Cody drops me off at work at 7:45 and I sit down for a long day at work. Then I get a call. It was our garage saying my car was broken into.
So I rush down to the garage (only 1.5 blocks away) and find my car completely assaulted. The moron thieves had apparently tried to break in the front driver window but didn't manage to actually bust out the entire window - only tear up my weather stripping and chip at the window all along the top. Apparently the geniuses then moved to my back driver window which, in a sporty car with two doors, is only about a 1.5x1.5x1.5 foot triangle. They busted it out, only to discover there was no way to unlock the door from that window - left glass everywhere though. Moron then moved to the passenger front window and finally hit the jackpot - glass everywhere, car open. The thief person then ransacked my entire car, thowing everything around, emptying the glove box and console, climbing into the back seat, messing with the trunk, etc.
All in all, he remained an idiot. The two most expensive things in the car where my new jacket (the warm one I blogged about) and Cody's Gator coat - together over $200, though not a ton of street value, I suppose. Next was my parking pass which could have gotten him in and out of the garage whenever he wanted - nope, left that. Then there was my building pass - he left that too and that would have given him unlimited access to a 22 story office building 24-hours a day. He really blew that one. He DID take my owners manual to my car (go figure) and all my non-burned CDs. He left the four packs of ripped/burned CDs and took the one pack of real CDs I had. His only problem was he robbed the wrong car - my CDs have ZERO "street value."
For instance, all day we were joking that some thug is driving around St. Louis listening to the Peter, Paul and Mary Campfire Sing-Along Songs (yes, I really own that CD - it has "Leaving on a Jet Plane" on it and I really like that song). We were joking that he was riding around singing "Michael Row your Boat Ashore." And then he's going to try to sell my Alladin soundtrack - good luck with that one buddy. And he's not going to know what to do with half the CDs in there - a ton are obscure bands no one in STL has heard of so the only person he could possibly sell them to would be ME! Then there's the entire collection of Bad Religion and They Might Be Giants CDs - good luck selling those on the black market too! What a moron thief!
Anyway, so after the police reports were filed and the insurance was called and the half dozen body shops were compared, Cody picked me up in his car (I had a doctor's appointment so I needed his car) and he took mine to the shop. The thing that really gets me is that he might have gotten $20 worth of stuff but did $1200 worth of damage to my car to get it! No one wins here except the body shop - thief dude loses because he got a bunch of lame CDs, I lose because I pay a ton of money and have no car now and the insurance loses because they pay out (though I'm sure they'll raise my rates for it).
I think I'm going to either (a) put a note with $20 on the car and just say to take this rather then break in since there are no guns, drugs or cash in my car - EVER or (b) leave the doors unlocked and windows down so if they want to fish around they can be my guest but it won't cost me a week with no car and a ton of money for breaking all my windows - good luck finding anything of value in my car.
So of course now I have to file a claim, because my back window alone is over $500 (which also happens to be my deductible). This is now the second claim I have ever filed and NEITHER were my fault - the first is when my car flooded at FSU parked in the bowl during a heavy rain. That's insane! Not only do I have to pay $500, my insurance will have to pay $1100 but my rates will go up - all becasue this moron wanted some CDs. . . but it gets better.
So, after all day joking about how this guy is a moron for stealing the worst street value CDs ever, I got another call from the garage and apparently the guy broke into another car and left my CDs in that guys car! So the theif figured out that my CDs were so bad that he wasn't going to get any money for Peter, Paul, and Mary and Aladin that he LEFT them!!!! So I get my CDs back tomorrow! All that damage to my car for what? An owners manual??
So what a Monday! Now Cody and get to carpool for the rest of the week and I get to deal with the body shop to get all my windows replaced and the weatherstripping fixed. AGGGGG... This week had better get better.

Sorry to offend any male readers for refering to my thief as a "he" but no woman would be that stupid to break into a car as messy and dirty as mine - she would have known I had nothing in there - just a bunch of shoes and trash. :)