Victims

While most ladies were waking up to flowers and chocolate on Valentine's Day, I woke up to lots of small, sparkly items!  

How exciting, right?  These shiny particles were not enclosed in a bracelet or necklace.  They weren't found inside a little jewelry box.  They were scattered around the driveway and in our van.  

We were the victims of vandalism early in the morning on Valentine's Day.   These shiny, sparkly items were glass, not diamonds.  

Saturday morning, I woke up at my brother's house and looked out the window.  The garage door across the way had yellow spray paint on it.  After a closer look I could see it was graffiti.  The image itself was quite vulgar with a message I couldn't decipher, (except one profane word).  My brother quickly went outside to see if there was any graffiti on his garage door and luckily there wasn't.  It was freezing in WI so we didn't go outside again until later in the morning.  

My brother decided to look around the house again and noticed a mountain bike sticking out of the rear view window of our van.  His initial thought was "why did they bring a bike?"  Another window had been smashed and he quickly realized what had happened.  He walked across the street to the neighbors who had also been vandalized, only to realize the bike was his sons and it had been sitting on their front porch the night before.

When the Madison Police came by a little later, we found out we weren't the only victims of vandalism.  There had been over 25 incidents, accounting for tens of thousands of dollars in damage.  Awesome!  

You can't help but feel violated when something like this happens.  This wasn't provoked and we weren't targeted.  (I'm hoping having out of state license plates had nothing to do with this).  It's simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  You definitely feel on the edge, wondering if it could happen again.  Your emotions spiral from anger and sadness, to annoyance, irritation and "why me?"  We did have some valuables in the vehicle and luckily nothing was stolen.  Obviously the punks responsible will never get caught or receive punishment for what they did.  We'll never understand the thought process behind doing something like this, and I pray my children NEVER think this is OK.

Our story made the local news and my brother had his first on-camera interview :).  

http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/Madison-police-investigating-string-of--291962761.html

(click on the Madison Vandalism video to view)


Being 5 hours away, we had to come up with a solution to get back home for the school/work week.  Ironically my sister in law's parents are vacationing in Mexico so another vehicle was available.  We drove my brother's van back, while ours continues it's vacation in Madison at the repair shop.  

Yes, I know things could have been worse.  The punks could have spray painted our van or dented it with whatever supplies they could find.  My brother's house could have suffered damages.  We are so thankful these things didn't happen.

You still can't help but feel upset about the entire thing. It's been a rough month thus far-with expenses we weren't anticipating and a couple things that have been out of our control.  Hopefully we will start to have some positives soon!