Yesterday morning before work Bob came inside and said that someone had stolen his briefcase from the car. I could hardly believe it, I figured he had put it somewhere in the house, but it turns out that the night before he forgot to lock the car, left his briefcase on the backseat, and it was obvious that someone had been in there, because they went through the glove compartment & left the contents on the front passenger's seat, also rifled through the pocket behind the driver's seat, moved his coat and messed up a blanket that we have protecting the backseat from dog hair. In addition to the briefcase, they stole 3 or 4 CDs that we had in the glove compartment (one was 1776 the musical).

So, the police came right away. I thought that it was probably some juvenile delinquent teenagers - the kids are on Easter break and they always get into trouble, but the cop said that there have been 50-60 car robberies in the past few weeks in Castleton and Schodack, and that there were 6 on our street - in fact, there were three on Green Avenue, including our car, the same night. So he said it is likely to be professional criminals, not some kids. Which of course is worse, because that means Bob has to be concerned about identity theft.

So yesterday after the police left, we spent almost all day calling banks, credit card companies, and the credit bureaus. Bob also had to go to two banks to close accounts and and open new ones. His major credit cards were in his wallet, which was in the house, but his checkbook, the Samsonville home equity checkbook, a joint checkbook that we rarely use, our savings account number & information, his social security card, his credit union ATM card (which has a Visa logo, the cop said that was the most likely thing to be used), and three store cards were in there. Also a pair of his eyeglasses, a photo CD of our nephew's graduation pictures, the voucher he got from Southwest airlines for being bumped, a souvenir and photo he bought in Florida, a bunch of paperwork (including his colonoscopy report) and my Margaret Atwood book were in there (between Atwood and the 1776 CD, these must be educated crooks)! There may be other things, but of course we will probably notice as we go along. The most expensive things were the briefcase (it was a leather LL Bean), the voucher for air miles, and the glasses. But our homeowner's deductible is $1000, so there is no point in putting in a claim.

Anyway, we took care of everything, so there shouldn't be a problem, but he will have to watch his credit report and statements for a while to be sure. Since there have been so many thefts, the police want video tapes from the banks in case they try to use the ATM visa, withdraw from the savings account, or forge the checks, so all of the accounts have teller alerts on them now. They took the contents of the glove compartment that were on the seat to see if they can get finger prints (it was mostly maps).

The cops checked the school and the fire department to see if maybe the briefcase had been thrown in the weeds or a dumpster after being emptied, and we checked the cemetery, but no luck. So I guess I will get him a new one for our anniversary. You'd think there would be something in the paper or on the news about this to warn people since there have been so many wouldn't you? But there hasn't been a word about it yet. Anyway, I was glad it wasn't me who forgot to lock the car (also that my pocketbook wasn't in there!).

I am shocked that the dogs didn't hear something. But then Sophie's main purpose in life is sleeping on the couch, and Sam is still such a baby that he doesn't spend time monitoring the street. I know for sure that if Mr. Wuj was alive, even when he was very sick at the end, he would have noticed, alerted us and scared off the creeps with his piercing wooooo.