A Break In

My neighbour's house was broken into today. Thankfully, nobody was at home (they were away for holidays), so nobody was hurt. The burglar was quite daring to break in around noon time, when most of the people would either be at work or at school. My neighbour's house was in the corner, and the burglar came in from the side door, where he would be least visible. Another neighbour claimed that they heard the alarm sound and came out to check, but saw nothing suspicious. Also it was not unusual to have a false alarm, even my own house alarm tend to get triggerred unnecessarily, so they paid no attention.

In the late afternoon, my neighbour's relative came over to water the plants and feed the rabbits, and noticed something was amiss. The curtains on the side door was parted slightly, and the padlock was missing from the grills and it wasn't locked. As soon as she stepped into the house, she was shocked to find a mess and all the drawers and cabinets ransacked. Frightened that the burglar may still be in the house, she quickly left and called the police. Since the owner was not around, they could not confirm what else was missing from the house, except the rabbit (the burglar must either have a soft spot for furry animals or is considering the bunny as his lunch).

Both my husband and I have contrasting reactions to this incident. The first thing that came to my mind was I'm glad that we were not affected and Pixie did not become a victim of cruel acts. I could still recall 2 of our dogs being poisoned 3 years ago, probably done by someone with evil plans. On the other hand my husband was worried about his things being stolen if the burglar was to break into our house, and went paranoia about putting every single thing in the safe.

I remember when we first moved in, he was overly paranoid about keeping the house safe from thieves and burglars that he put locks and double locks on every single door of the house. I told him that if a burglar had any intention of coming in, we would have to lose even more money repairing doors that the burglar breaks. I also told him that if ever there was a fire, I would be burnt alive inside the house because it takes me just too long to unlock the padlocks and grills and doors to escape. And so in the end I told him off because I refused to become a prisoner of my own home, and we finally compromised on a fewer locks which were only absolutely necessary.

Are materials really so important in our lives? To me, nothing is more important than our lives and memories. I would probably be sad if somebody stole my notebook, but I could easily look on the other side and think, "Hey, it's a chance for me to buy a new one!". At least, I'm alive and still able and it won't take me long to earn enough to get a replacement. But it would completely break my heard if the notebook that was stolen contains all my work and photos that I so dearly treasure. That's certainly not something I can rewind and have another second go, can I??

I'd better go check on my backup to make sure it's up to date. If ever I'm so unfortunate to have the burglar interested in my notebook, I'd still have my backups with me.