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maychorianThese bits were written on notebook paper this morning. I feel the need to share.
9:00
So I went down to the parking lot at my apartment to drive to work today, and I found that the tires on my car were slashed. Mine, and those of about thirty other cars parked around my building. Some had two slashed, some three and some four. I was one of the "lucky" ones, with only two tires slashed.
My first thought after Angela told me this (she's one of the office ladies here, and was standing in the parking lot taking notes on all the damage) was that I was going to be late for work. So I called my office and told them. Then I took my phone to the parking lot while I looked to see if the tires had just been drained, or were actually slashed. Nope, they were slashed. Each had a two-inch gash in the top part. Drained tires would have been a minor inconvenience--stupid, but not harmful. This, though, this is vandalism, not a prank.
I called my family, then, and asked if I could borrow a car. Dad said since it was only two tires, maybe we could switch out the spares from my car and his (he drives a Honda, too) so I could drive. I'm waiting for him now, sitting in my car trying to process this. I want to call someone and just talk, but I don't want to bother anyone, and writing is good.
10:20
Well, Dad came, with Andrew and Philip, and changed the tires. And I called and filed a police report over the phone. So weird. I've never done anything like this before. I mean, I was a victim of a crime as a child, but I didn't have to deal with the police or anything--the perpetrator confessed immediately.
But this. It's taken me awhile to realize that I'm actually a victim of vandalism, here. So weird. And unsettling. You just don't expect this sort of thing to happen in Fort Wayne. Not on the northeast side, anyway. It's not like we're rich or anything. My apartment complex is nice, but not that nice.
Turns out that it wasn't just the cars around my building. The entire complex was hit. Four buildings, each with three floors and thirty-six apartments. That's a lot of cars. They're all parked out in the open, too, so someone was being really brazen.
I just can't wrap my head around this. Why would someone want to do something like this? Or more than one someone, which seems probable, with so many cars vandalized and no one finding out until morning.
Dad joked that maybe it's some local tire salesman trying to drum up business. If so, I'm foiling that plot! I'm buying my new (used) tires in Leo. A whole fifteen minutes away.
But seriously. Is this some sort of middle-class suburban gang of skinhead punks? Oh, the horror. This is a purely residential neighborhood. Heaven save us from gangs. (Yes, I'm being sort of sarcastic here. Sort of.)
Another thing Dad said is that maybe someone was angry at someone in the building and didn't know which car was theirs, so they slashed them all. But that was before we found out that the entire complex had been hit. Now it seems like it was a random act of violence.
And that's the scariest thing, really. Not having a face or reason to put on this. It's not like they broke into the cars and stole the radios or anything. They just slashed the tires. What did they gain from this? A half-hour of fun?
When I get my new tires and park at my apartment tonight, will they just be slashed again? Will these guys keep coming back? Why would they?
More to the point, I guess, is why wouldn't they? If someone gets their fun this way, why would they stop?
As far as I know, there are no witnesses, no suspects. There is no face to this. In my imagination is a young man dressed in black sweats and a knit cap, holding a knife and grinning. But who is it, really? How will they ever be caught? This really isn't important, in the grand scheme of things. This isn't a murder or a rape or a terrorist attack. But it's important to me, and to my neighbors who were also vandalized.
In the end, it could have been much worse for me, personally. Only two of my tires were slashed, and one of them was desperately in need of replacement, anyway. My dad and brothers came right away, and I only missed an hour of work. My car is really old, and I'll probably only spend thirty to fifty dollars on a pair of used tires and go on with my life. Assuming this doesn't happen again.
But the questions remain. As minor as this crime is, in the scheme of things, it's still a violation that happened to me, and I have to deal with it, financially and emotionally. It still hurts. It still bothers me, deep in my gut, and that's not going to go away.
Ah, this has been a crappy week anyway. One of my pet mice died on Wednesday, and I cried all day. Just a little, but still crying--I would tear up, blow my nose and wipe my eyes, then tear up again twenty minutes later. My work is getting harder--I feel more stressed, more personally involved, more pressured to do everything exactly right, and I'm not allowed to blog there anymore. My money situation is not the best. My NaNo novel is effectively stalled. And I wish those telemarketers would leave me alone--my personality is too weak for me to deal with them.
All in all, not a very fun Friday.
Oh well. I'll be okay. Thanks for listening.
Update: So the tire place didn't have any used tires, and I spent a hundred dollars on new ones. Frack. But today is pay day so I have a little money. And I bought Ratatouille and watched with my siblings and it was amazingly wonderfully fantastic and I love it. And we had Youth Fellowship at the Sauders and my siblings and I stayed really late and I played fun songs on the piano with Cassie and Tim doing percussion, including a number of sixties songs like "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "Mr. Tambourine Man", and I really enjoyed that.
And I'm very tired now and should probably go home and go to bed. Sigh. I think I think too much.
9:00
So I went down to the parking lot at my apartment to drive to work today, and I found that the tires on my car were slashed. Mine, and those of about thirty other cars parked around my building. Some had two slashed, some three and some four. I was one of the "lucky" ones, with only two tires slashed.
My first thought after Angela told me this (she's one of the office ladies here, and was standing in the parking lot taking notes on all the damage) was that I was going to be late for work. So I called my office and told them. Then I took my phone to the parking lot while I looked to see if the tires had just been drained, or were actually slashed. Nope, they were slashed. Each had a two-inch gash in the top part. Drained tires would have been a minor inconvenience--stupid, but not harmful. This, though, this is vandalism, not a prank.
I called my family, then, and asked if I could borrow a car. Dad said since it was only two tires, maybe we could switch out the spares from my car and his (he drives a Honda, too) so I could drive. I'm waiting for him now, sitting in my car trying to process this. I want to call someone and just talk, but I don't want to bother anyone, and writing is good.
10:20
Well, Dad came, with Andrew and Philip, and changed the tires. And I called and filed a police report over the phone. So weird. I've never done anything like this before. I mean, I was a victim of a crime as a child, but I didn't have to deal with the police or anything--the perpetrator confessed immediately.
But this. It's taken me awhile to realize that I'm actually a victim of vandalism, here. So weird. And unsettling. You just don't expect this sort of thing to happen in Fort Wayne. Not on the northeast side, anyway. It's not like we're rich or anything. My apartment complex is nice, but not that nice.
Turns out that it wasn't just the cars around my building. The entire complex was hit. Four buildings, each with three floors and thirty-six apartments. That's a lot of cars. They're all parked out in the open, too, so someone was being really brazen.
I just can't wrap my head around this. Why would someone want to do something like this? Or more than one someone, which seems probable, with so many cars vandalized and no one finding out until morning.
Dad joked that maybe it's some local tire salesman trying to drum up business. If so, I'm foiling that plot! I'm buying my new (used) tires in Leo. A whole fifteen minutes away.
But seriously. Is this some sort of middle-class suburban gang of skinhead punks? Oh, the horror. This is a purely residential neighborhood. Heaven save us from gangs. (Yes, I'm being sort of sarcastic here. Sort of.)
Another thing Dad said is that maybe someone was angry at someone in the building and didn't know which car was theirs, so they slashed them all. But that was before we found out that the entire complex had been hit. Now it seems like it was a random act of violence.
And that's the scariest thing, really. Not having a face or reason to put on this. It's not like they broke into the cars and stole the radios or anything. They just slashed the tires. What did they gain from this? A half-hour of fun?
When I get my new tires and park at my apartment tonight, will they just be slashed again? Will these guys keep coming back? Why would they?
More to the point, I guess, is why wouldn't they? If someone gets their fun this way, why would they stop?
As far as I know, there are no witnesses, no suspects. There is no face to this. In my imagination is a young man dressed in black sweats and a knit cap, holding a knife and grinning. But who is it, really? How will they ever be caught? This really isn't important, in the grand scheme of things. This isn't a murder or a rape or a terrorist attack. But it's important to me, and to my neighbors who were also vandalized.
In the end, it could have been much worse for me, personally. Only two of my tires were slashed, and one of them was desperately in need of replacement, anyway. My dad and brothers came right away, and I only missed an hour of work. My car is really old, and I'll probably only spend thirty to fifty dollars on a pair of used tires and go on with my life. Assuming this doesn't happen again.
But the questions remain. As minor as this crime is, in the scheme of things, it's still a violation that happened to me, and I have to deal with it, financially and emotionally. It still hurts. It still bothers me, deep in my gut, and that's not going to go away.
Ah, this has been a crappy week anyway. One of my pet mice died on Wednesday, and I cried all day. Just a little, but still crying--I would tear up, blow my nose and wipe my eyes, then tear up again twenty minutes later. My work is getting harder--I feel more stressed, more personally involved, more pressured to do everything exactly right, and I'm not allowed to blog there anymore. My money situation is not the best. My NaNo novel is effectively stalled. And I wish those telemarketers would leave me alone--my personality is too weak for me to deal with them.
All in all, not a very fun Friday.
Oh well. I'll be okay. Thanks for listening.
Update: So the tire place didn't have any used tires, and I spent a hundred dollars on new ones. Frack. But today is pay day so I have a little money. And I bought Ratatouille and watched with my siblings and it was amazingly wonderfully fantastic and I love it. And we had Youth Fellowship at the Sauders and my siblings and I stayed really late and I played fun songs on the piano with Cassie and Tim doing percussion, including a number of sixties songs like "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "Mr. Tambourine Man", and I really enjoyed that.
And I'm very tired now and should probably go home and go to bed. Sigh. I think I think too much.
