Break-in

Is it a sign of the times? Or are we just lucky that it hasn't happened to us yet?

My husband occasionally has to park on the street in a not-so-great neighborhood in Seattle. His car is a beater - old, with 200,000+ miles on it (it still gets over 30mpg, though), and as is his wont, he'll drive it into the ground. In this not-so-great neighborhood, his car has been keyed several times, but between the old paint and dents, it hasn't been that big of a deal.

Yesterday, someone broke into his car. They punched out a small back window and unlocked the car (courteous of them, as it will cost less to replace). They climbed into the front and took the spare change - maybe a couple of bucks, if they were lucky. They left empty-handed other than that (we think). They didn't take the cassette tapes :-). His car has no CD player, and there was no MP3 player, iPod, or the like in the car - usually he listens to books on tape from the library. I bet they doubted that someone could lead such a spartan existence.

The ironic thing is, a couple of weeks ago, we were parking downtown, and I was collecting the spare change out of my car so it wasn't in sight. Mr. E laughed at me, and said that no-one would break into a car for the spare change. I told him of a time when I was at the UW, when someone did to a girl on my floor's car (oddly enough, during the last big downturn of the economy). He laughed it off at the time.

So now his beater is sporting a new duct-taped window. The pride of the neighborhood :-)