It could have been worse...

...but it shouldn't have happened at all.

My co-workers said today there are news reports of an epidemic of "smash and grab" thieves at work all over the Puget Sound region. Smash a car window and grab whatever looks inviting there. Last evening was my turn.

I'd gone for Wednesday evening Holy Communion, followed by a meatless supper and the Rector's Session, in which we're reading (and listening to John Cleese? read) C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. (The reading is amusing because the cadence and inflection perfectly matches one of my German colleagues when he is speaking English.) I was tired and a bit down, but it was okay.

Until I got to my car. Passenger window smashed and my backpack gone. After the initial shock I tried to get past it, calling in a police report and running mental inventories of what might have been in the backpack. But I know the incident shocked other folks too. Still, we tried to clear out the glass, put plastic over the window for a little warmth driving home (didn't work) and I headed out.

On the 22 minutes' drive home I figured out what I had lost were:
- work laptop
- MP3 player & earbuds
- assorted cables and chargers
- USB drives
- backpack and miscellaneous stuff including my international travel packet (eyeshades & a few small items)

Fortunately the work laptop had been backed up last weekend (I try to back up in advance of travel) AND the company had installed software so that the entire drive is encrypted -- one has to supply username and password before it will even boot. The loss to me here was going to be some unknown numbers of days without a computer; not a good thing. But even though there is no sensitive information on the machine, there is *nothing* they'll get off it.

The USB drives had nothing important on them (they NEVER do, by policy); one boots Linux and the other has my powerpoint from last week's conference.

The MP3 player was a small hurt with its 40G capacity (half filled), but it was also 4 years old and by today's standards a brick. Replacing it with something of similar capacity and a whole lot smaller will cost much, much less.

So I wasn't doing too badly when I got home. It was a little different today when I began to fully appreciate all the hoops I was going to have to go through to get a replacement laptop. Still have a few more to go through, but kindly co-workers found me a spare (thanks, Amy and Kevin!) and a kindly contract IT guy drove over to re-image and configure the machine for me (thanks, Don!).

And, oh yes, Kathy found an autoglass place nearby at 8 AM, at 8:30 we left the car with him (the owner, it turns out, is a really nice guy and lives close by us) and at 9:30 the car was ready to go.

Though I am suddenly uncomfortable at having a vehicle with no trunk, if this was one of Screwtape's nephews at work I don't think he was very successful.