The Break In

If the people who broke into our house dressed like this, I might excuse the theft of my netbook

Some time in April, the house I grew up in was robbed. When I had just come home from school/work and walked into the kitchen, I discovered that the door that led from the back yard to the basement was propped open and the door that led from the basement to the kitchen, which had locks on it was kicked open. The first thing I did was check all the rooms to seeing whether or not anything was missing. I discovered that out of everything that was in our house, the only thing missing was my netbook and my old blackberry.

After calling the police, who came to the conclusion that it was most likely kids from the neighborhood, I called my aunt, my sister and my mother. In all my conversations about the incident, I tried to keep cool, saying to people that this was just stipend for living in a predominantly black neighborhood but deep down, I was scared. It was bad enough when someone had broken into the house a few years ago, when I wasn't living at home, but now, not only did someone break in while I was there but only my things were taken. 

I thought the cops told me that kids had broken in just to be on their merry way but then I thought about it. I'm no expert on crime but everything besides my stuff was left intact. TVs, DVD players, my game systems and movies, all still where they were. Even my mother's laptop was still where it was, even though it wasn't in sight. Real robbers would've taken everything and this was done during daytime so it made sense that this was done by children.

Besides wanting to punch every child in the neighbor in paranoia, I held my fear inside with humor on the outside. However, I knew this wasn't healthy and decided I needed to talk to someone. The person I spoke to gave me the advice that just because I come from a predominately black neighborhood, which really isn't that bad, doesn't mean I should play tough in front of everyone. Things like this can make the toughest person feel violated and that I should be thankful that only my netbook, which was replaced by the weekend, and my blackberry, which I only used as an alarm, were stolen. I had to accept that this not only happens 'in the hood' but  it happens everywhere and I shouldn't have felt ashamed to feel afraid when something like this happens.