Apparently I had a minor stroke and left it outside with its windows down and- oh no I didn't put a hole in the door. Or rip out the ignition cylinder.
The windows were rolled down to varying degrees, the wipers were in the 12 o'clock position, and the manual was missing, along with my Maine EZ-Pass. Not exactly a king's ransom. The battery was also dead.Having never been a victim of a crime before (excluding having 'my' Nintendo stolen by thieves who also relieved my parents of other inconsequential items like jewelry and gold ingots) I tried out a few different reactions before settling on depression, which I often do.
I'm not really all that upset that the car is damaged, although it is turning into a pain trying to get it fixed and coordinating the repair with the insurance company. I am upset that someone can have so little regard for me (or anyone else, for that matter). I am upset that there are no consequences for whomever did this. I am upset that they suck so badly at what they do they weren't able to steal the car. I am upset the police function only as a means for generating a report number, and not as any sort of investigative or preventative unit, though I would concede they have bigger fish to fry. I am upset I didn't notice anything going on. I am upset there's nothing I can do about it, and little I can do to prevent it from happening again.
I didn't really experience the feeling that nearly everyone I speak with mentions - the feeling of 'violation' that someone was in your car/home whatever. I'm mostly just continuously angry off that something I spend a fair amount of time/money/effort on is so quickly reduced to a 3500 lb paperweight. And I realize that the car will be fine once I get it back (eventually) and there are much greater tragedies happening in a lot of places. But the theft/vandalism seems like an apt metaphor - some people just don't give a shit about you or the things you care about. And they'll resort to whatever means they can to profit from you. I guess I lost some of my naivety, and it's more of a shock than I would have guessed.
