It's a Wonderful Life! OR Vandals Steal GPS!

Greg has been with Toyota for 8 Christmases and has never wanted to go to the office Christmas party. This year, I asked him if he would like to go, because I thought I would. It was a small party, just his division, due to budget-cutting implementation company-wide. We had dinner at the smallest restaurant I have ever seen, then drove just a couple miles to see the play, It's a Wonderful Life. We sat in the second-to-last row and I heartily enjoyed the play. The music was wonderful, the acting was very good for a community theater presentation, and we enjoyed sitting with friends and co-workers. After the play, we all streamed out into the cold night and walked over to the parking lot. Greg opened my door and as I sat in the passenger seat, I noticed some kind of strange reflection on the driver's seat, which quickly became identified as all the driver's side window glass, broken out by vandals. I called out for Greg, and got out of the car. One other car had been broken into as well. Both had GPS units which were stolen. The police were summoned, but with little expectation that either unit could be recovered. Greg's co-workers were wonderful in helping us with something to sweep out the glass, letting me sit in another car to keep warm, and even offering to drive me all the way home if Greg was going to have to wait for the police. We were on the complete other side of Cincinnati, so we rode home with lots of highway noise. Sunday, I asked Greg to put this Christmas cellophane on my window because I figured if I was going to have to make do with a pretend window, I wanted it to be festive!

Our fine insurance company had a glass specialist in our driveway Monday afternoon and we had a new window less than 48 hours after it had gotten broken out. Alas, no GPS anymore, which was sad because Greg really enjoyed using his GPS. We heard that if you have registered your GPS, you can give the serial number to the police and they may be able to locate it, being a GPS and all. As of this writing, we didn't actually try that.

But the whole experience really reminded me of what a wonderful life we do have. Presumable, the vandals stole the GPS for reasons like money for drugs, sell it cheap to have money, or maybe something more understandable like desperate need for money to support a family. Whatever. I would have preferred not to be vandalized and would definitely have preferred not to have Greg lose his GPS, but how can I possibly complain when I DO have a wonderful life. I thought of the many people who do not have the kind of insurance we have, and who drive around with ugly plastic and duct tape posing as a "window." I thought of the many people who experience crimes against them and I felt the tiniest understanding of what that feels like. We are just so blessed.

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