Shame On You!

We were getting in the car, heading out for a fun day. Jason had the day off of work and we wanted to spend the warm afternoon walking around and shopping at City Creek. Charlie loves being outside and loves stroller rides, so we knew he would love it. And he did, and it was a really fun afternoon, complete with lunch from Chik-Fil-A and our first stop at the new Trader Joe’s in Salt Lake. We just love their dark chocolate covered almonds, the ones with chunks of sea salt on the outside. Yum! We also had to try their vanilla cake mix that Alli had been raving about. I found a huge basil plant there for $4 that I transplanted into our garden that lasted the rest of the season (it’s still hanging on, but just barely).

But let’s back up a bit. Remember how I said we were getting into the car? Well, I opened the passenger side door and noticed my winter gloves that I keep in the middle compartment were sitting on the seat. I thought that was strange and figured there was no way Jason had worn them since yesterday. Maybe he had taken them out in an effort to find something in the compartment. So I looked inside, and realized all of the coins had been taken out. My tanning lotion was also gone. Oh shoot, someone had broken in and stolen from us! I looked around to see what else had been stolen. Everything else seemed normal. The stereo was still there, my sunglasses were still there, our bag of giftcards was still in the glove compartment. I thought to myself, “Man, these are the worst burglars ever! They bothered to break in only to take a few coins and lotion?” Later in the day, as Jason was getting Charlie out of the car to go into Trader Joe’s, he said, “Oh, good you took my parent’s luggage back.” And then it hit me, the thieves also took two very nice suitcases. One was a hanging suitcase that is quite expensive and hard to find. We had borrowed them from Jason’s parents for the cruise and I had left them in the car to remind myself to return them. I hadn’t noticed they were gone earlier because they weren’t among the typical items that were usually in the car. We were devastated! We knew we would need to replace them and it would probably cost a couple hundred dollars. At that point, I also realized that they had taken a nice formal dress that I was returning to the store. Okay, it wasn’t that nice of a dress, but it was still $40 that I was planning on getting back. We were so mad!

Later that day, Jason got a sudden work call, so he had to leave as soon as we got home. As he was driving out from behind the apartment buildings, he noticed something black stuffed under some low hanging branches and in some shrubs. He quickly got out, and to his astonishment, he found the two suitcases! The dirty thieves had stolen the suitcases, walked down the sidewalk a few yards, checked inside for any valuables, and dumped them in the bushes. I’m sure they were real disappointed to find the luggage empty. Oh man, we were so relieved! Imagine if Jason had not noticed them there! It would be so sad to think of us going out to buy new ones when they were sitting right there all along! What a blessing! That definitely turned our day around. We never found the dress, but hey, what is $40 next to a possible $200?

We will definitely start locking our car every night now!