Holy fucking moly

I have been absent now for almost a week.

We went to karate on Monday evening, after stitching and mucking about with my laptop as I always do while stitching.  I put the laptop to sleep, and we left at 19:20.

Karate was good... considering we hadn't gone for almost 2 weeks, it was pleasantly strenuous.

We got home, I got out the car to open the garage door, G was playing the fool pretending to sing with the radio, I pulled a face at him, and opened the garage door.  The inner door, between the garage and the lounge was open... I looked back at G because *I* certainly hadn't and wouldn't have left it open, then I went towards it, and stepped into the house.

Bloody fucking hell... I just... dunno - I don't remember... but the single-couch cushions were chucked off... the digital camera and G's old nokia was still there, but my nokia... MY CELLPHONE... gone!

Tthe buffet cupboard's doors were open... MY LAPTOP was gone... the old one I stored in there 'to keep it out of view from the window' (as lack of incentive to break in)... fucking hell, my laptop, on the stitching table... gone.

The bed... I stumbled into the bedroom to find the bed shoved to the side, the pillows chucked around, our whole 'important documents' folder THROWN out onto the bed... I turned to look into the walk-in-robe... all of my things... my jewellery, just chucked out of the little plastic storage drawers... jewellery boxes and little decorative cardboard boxes... emptied and discarded.  Little pretty paper packets which odds and ends of jewellery were gifted in, ripped and discarded... the ring-box I got with the engagement ring... thrown down.  Empty.  The bedroom window open... no gauze-mesh screen.... gone... the blinds were opened... shock... shock shock shock...

I hurried out of the bedroom, the sliding door in the lounge... a blind was ripped down... the door was open...

The kitchen... larder cupboard door open, one of our re-usable shopping bags on the floor... I grabbed the phone and dialled 000... not even hearing the person on the other end... just saying 'hi, we've just been burgled... ok yes...' when told they were transferring me to the police.

Held for ages... I charged around the house in despair... looking around... the bathroom cupboards wide open... drawers pulled open... nothing of value in there... the 'hallway' cupboard pulled open... nothing valuable... G's 'study'... nothing touched - the sliding door of the cupboard was open.  Looked in my 'study'... they had opened my wardrobe in there, but obviously nothing in there they'd want, just model horses and My Little Ponies.  They looked in my fancy, pearlescent box, thinking it contained more valuable stuff than cross-stitch threads...

Back and forth, through the house, despair... shock... G takes the phone from me, as I'm still holding... the side-gate by the front of the house is wide open... I've already walked with the torch but don't see anything, I run to knock at the neighbour's door - it's dark, but they have a motion sensor light... they answer, she stays behind, he comes to our front door with me... I don't enter though as it's too intruded already without having the neighbour come in, and as I said to the neighbour while waiting for G to come back from being on the phone, it almost feels like if I stand out here it's as if nothing's wrong in there.  He said they heard nothing... also that it's a common thing - 6 or 7 out of the 8 houses in the street have been broken into... wow that's great to hear...

The phonecall takes forever... it's hopeless... whoever it is has run long ago... it's dark, there are a million directions he could have gone.  G gets a police case number... we thank the neighbour, he goes, we close up shop... go around closing blinds and windows and G closes the wide-open bedroom window... closes the sliding door... we look again to see what's been taken... my purse, our 3 rings, as well as (cleverly, fuckers), the valuation papers from the important-documents file... nothing else was important enough.  And my 2 laptops... a diamante set of earrings, bracelet and hairclips I thought were taken too were found... these are no fools. 

And they took one of our re-usable shopping bags... put both the laptops and chargers in the bag, and left... the insult!  The absolute disregard for what those laptops mean to me, to us... the fact that the old laptop and the phone are of almost no value now... they're old, scratched, they only mean something to me... smses, pictures, mms, contacts, notes, ringtones... soundclips, video clips... videos and pictures of the last car drive we took with Dude... when we 'moved out' to G's parents' place... and then, the fact that the entire contents of the old laptop were copied onto the new laptop, but expanded by 3 months... added to, grown, organised, supplemented... gone.

I phoned the bank/mobile phone company, travel-card companies to block the cards... all quick and simple.  Then we find the purse, cards removed and discarded, on the messed up bed... obviously no cash and the cards are of no use to them... so now I have cancelled cards that I still had (yay)... rather safe than sorry.

We go through the house locking and double-locking everything... 2am... time to sleep... if we can.  It's so so difficult, I'm so afraid... just can't... the windows aren't closed, the blinds are see-through... so insecure.  So afraid...

I lie there, listening, terrified, for a sound... of course there are sounds in that state of mind.  Morning comes and I'm so turmoiled, so upset.  Angry, autopilot.  Devastated, biting back tears, angry, resentful, shock.  Don't even remember what we did that day.  I do remember looking for my phone under/in/on top of things in the hope that it was thrown to the side.  We were then on our way to the mobile provider's shop, to get my sim swapped, when the fingerprints constable phones, can she come over, otherwise is tomorrow morning better?  Today, please!!  (We need this done so that we can finally close cupboards and put things away... it's so upsetting seeing the place like that...)

She comes, does her thing... she's so helpful and friendly and she's so reassuring, not by words but just in presence.  Apparently, there were about 6 burglaries that same evening... essentially some fucker walking around, knocking to see who's home.  Obviously this is their 'day job', there don't seem to be any usable fingerprints.  She's taken what she can get, but says we should wait out our lease then move.  It's called Forest Break, this suburb, because of how commonplace house break-ins are.  That's great to know.  It would have been more useful knowing this before we even moved country, but we live and learn don't we.

She's finished, takes the ripped envelopes with her in case there are prints on there.  We go to the shop.  I can't remember the 'query pin' in order for them to do the swap of the SIMcard, and stupidly I didn't think to bring my passport... so we can't get the SIM swapped.  It's just (unintentionally) a slap across the face and I'm overcome by tears... sitting in the mall, tears streaming down my face...

At least we are able to buy a temporary number, I pretend I have flu (excuse my red eyes).  I just can't bear the thought of having no phone number... to be totally disconnected from the outside world... my SA SIMcard still works but has no airtime (and is on roaming anyway).  At least my extremely old nokia has a good portion of my contacts 'left behind' on it, so I am immensely comforted.

That night isn't any better, still afraid, and the next day again I'm angry.  I think that was the worst day.  It's shit being angry during the day, overwhelmed with shock response, and then the moment it gets dark, to be terrified.

We've been hunting on eBay... and other sites.  I now have a laptop again, to aid in the hunt.  I'm still angry.  I have a back up though, made in November, but I've lost almost 6 months.  And over 3 years of smses... messages of bad news, sad news, happy news, wishes on birthdays, anniversaries, as well as night-before-the-wedding wellwishes. 

Fuck the bastards who can so casually take that away.