A Christmas Marred By Crime

This year’s Christmas was as a good of a weekend as I can remember recently, that was unfortunately tarnished by an awful post-Christmas surprise. Before I start my story, I would like to say that I hope each and every one of our readers and listeners had a wonderful holiday weekend, with the hopes of the same this upcoming weekend.

Christmas was absolutely wonderful as I shared great times with friends and family, saw the Giants win a crucial game, and received some awesome presents, including an iPad 2.

We spent the weekend at my parent’s house in Toms River, which is in a very nice and very safe neighborhood, with friends and families stopping by throughout Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There were basically people over until about 3AM on Monday morning, which makes the story that much more unbelievable.

I was set to wake up on Monday morning with a nice, relaxing day off from work, when my brother came running into my room, saying that somebody had gotten into his car overnight.

Immediately, a million thoughts ran through my head, trying to remember if I had left my car unlocked, beings as though I had been home for days with my car in the driveway. Security was something I never feared in this neighborhood, especially with that many people there.

Sure enough, a GPS and gifts were taken out of my brother’s unlocked car. I walked up to my car, and saw the middle console rummaged through, and it hit me that I had left my wallet in that same middle console. The wallet was a goner, as were some gifts, and my headphones for on-air work.

This is the moment when Christmas really ended for me and panic set over, trying to remember the contents of my wallet, and what damage could be caused.

I canceled my debit and 2 major credit cards, then called the police to file a report. After wrapping up wit them, I had a few other minor credit cards to cancel. I had put those off because not much damage could be caused with them. As I was canceling two of them, I got word from the credit card company that the burglars had just attempted to use them.

This, of course, set off more phone calls and a visit from a detective to try to piece this case together.

I am a pretty reserved and un-dramatic person, but my paranoia at this point was through the roof. As was anger and rage, that somebody not only did this in my drive-way on Christmas night, but that my family, especially my three baby nieces and nephews were all put in harm’s way.

Throughout the day, every range of emotion shuttered through me. I had held off writing about this until today because it was still an open wound.

In the meantime, I learned through the police reports we get here at the station that it was a rash of burglaries that were hit on that side of town at that time period.

I have slowly put things back together, such as getting a new license and ordering new credit cards, etc. Also, I am completely over the tangible items, but still harping on how somebody could do something as low and brazen as this, especially on Christmas.

What have I learned? I will definitely not apologize for leaving a wallet in my unlocked car in my driveway, because it still does not give the right for anybody to go in there and take it. However, I have definitely learned my lesson to never do that again, no matter how safe I feel somewhere. I have learned to be more vigilant in general, because complacency can result in awful situations like this.

Nobody in my family was hurt or harmed, and the other things can be replaced. Christmas may have been tarnished a bit, but it was not ruined in the slightest.

I am still fuming mad, but I will get over it.

The case is still on-going, and I am a believer that karma will return the favor to the people who committed this crime.

Again, I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday, and if anybody has dealt with similar situations, please share your stories or tips for how to deal with it.