Our neighborhood has suffered a spate of burglaries — I think that's the technical term. A spate. Don't want to say a rash of burglaries, because that makes it sound like your house is red and itchy. Burglars break in, so you break out? Call the police and get the lotion.
You can brush aside the occasional report of someone taking a bike from a garage, because there will always be opportunistic miscreants wandering around looking for things to take and people to victimize. Leave an anvil in your driveway, and 10 minutes later it'll be gone. The cops will stop a guy 15 blocks away dragging an anvil, and he'll insist he bought it from John. Sure, a couple of years ago he did a stretch for Grand Theft Anvil, but he got this one fair and square. Happens all the time.
Anyway, this is not a rash, and maybe it's not a spate. Perhaps the accurate term is campaign of terror. The burglaries haven't happened when people have been at work. They happen at night. When people are home.
Bonus fun: the crooks cut the phone lines. You're no longer imagining one burglar, but a crew wearing Halloween masks.
They also steal cars from the garage, just to ruin your day as thoroughly as possible. They load up the cars with loot, then drive elsewhere to transfer the goods. Very professional, inasmuch as "being miserable human beings" is a profession.
Now, if they were colorful characters in a movie, it would be different. Right? If we were watching a caper film, why, they'd have different personality traits — the guy who picked the lock, nicknamed Fingers, would be quiet and intense and spend the job putting his ear up to locks and saying roguish things like: "That's right, darling, one more click." The guy who cut the phone lines to ensure the alarm didn't alert the home office would be Sparks — a nervous guy who probably gets shot in the second act. The leader would be George Clooney, whom we like but we're shocked when he won't take Sparks to a doctor to get the bullet removed. Hey, maybe this career criminal with a winsome smile isn't a decent fellow, after all.
We've all seen this movie, right? A dozen times. You just hate to think you're going to end up at the end of the cast list as Startled Homeowner.
The break-ins hit a peak while we were on vacation, and I kept waiting for my phone to ring with the home security number on the screen. (The alarm is loud enough I could have heard it, and we were in London.) But we were spared, and continue to be lucky — in fact, I'm sure neighbors are looking at me with slight suspicion. I may have to stage a robbery in my home to remove their doubts.
