It started with the dog waking in the middle of the night and me hoping she didn't want me to get up to let her out. This was in the wee hours of the morning - I don't really know when, 'cause this time I didn't look at the clock to see how much more time I had to sleep.
At 6:15 the alarm went off and I did the unusual thing of snoozing until 6:30. I hadn't done that since I had kids that need to be up and getting ready for school.
I headed to the kitchen, making sure the children were awake as I passed by their rooms. All was o.k .considering it was the first true day to require waking up since the time changed. I began getting ready to make breakfast when the dog came into the kitchen and wanted out - NOW. She usually wants out, but this time she didn't do her normal saunter, she wasn't waiting around. Which I thought was an urge to go potty.
As I was letting her out, it occurred to me that I could see light shining from the garage onto the driveway. This was not a good sign, this probably meant that Bryan left the light on, potentially inviting someone into the garage. Or, a bay door could be open possibly letting the dog out into the neighborhood (just an FYI - we never leave our garage doors open at night).
So I went down to check and I found not only the light on, but both bays open. CRAP. I checked my car (because I usually leave my purse in it), and the door was not shut all the way. My purse wasn't inside (I won't make you wait on this one....but it was up in the kitchen for the first time in like, EVER). So I headed in to see if my purse was in the house when I turned around and realized that our hide a key was in the door and then it dawned on me that the playroom light was on. So, I went in. And then noticed a big pile of papers where my Vera Bradley bag had been. And of course I kept getting more irritated at Bryan for leaving the bays up (he likes them up when he's outside) and leaving the key in the door. As I entered the playroom (did I mention my house is raised, so the garage laundry and playroom are on the ground floor and you go up stairs to get to the main part of the house?), my eyes took a second to focus on the fact that the entertainment console was bare. That's right - BARE (except for the dust).
And by BARE I mean no Wii console, no XBox, no games, no remotes, no cords. Nothing. Simply nothing. Luckily the TV is big and mounted on the wall - not so easy to pick up and take.
Long story short - I spent the morning with the finger print crew, mid morning thinking someone was in the house because of an opened door that had previously been closed and locked (this required the second visit of Charleston's Finest), mid afternoon shaking in my boots and answering a plethora of phone calls from concerned friends, loved ones and lock smiths. And then this evening I got a call from a neighbor telling me we weren't the only ones...about 4 other houses on his end of the street had been robbed. We don't know if they had been burglurized as we had been (the trespassory breaking and entering of the dwelling of another at night with an intent to commit a felony therein - and yes, they were in my house while we were upstairs sleeping), but apparently it had happened all over the neighborhood.
So back to the dog getting up in the wee hours, I think she heard them, went to check them out, and actually kept them from getting away with more. I keep thinking maybe they came upstairs because I am missing several stems of crystal from the dining room. And I keep saying "they" because the officers informed me that a patrol of the neighborhood was made in the middle of the night due to another neighbor calling because of seeing suspicious people out and about. So there was definitely a they.
So sad the fridge is out of beer right now. I sure could use one.