Poor Chuck

So, our beloved Chuck (also known as my 1998 Honda Civic) had an unfortunate meeting with the schmucks of Salida late in the evening of December 29/early morning of December 30. Though, we didn't find out about it until late in the afternoon on the 30th. I wasn't feeling well so Darren and I headed out to our car to run to the gas station and get me a 7-up. We walked to the passenger side door and as I glanced inside this is what I saw:

At first I thought, "That's weird. I never leave the glove box open". And then I glanced over and saw this:

I immediately burst into tears and quickly walked back inside the house. I cried and cried and cried and really didn't know what else to do. Darren's mom came in and gave me a hug and tried to comfort me, but I felt so violated that I really couldn't stop crying. Chuck is/was the first car I have ever owned. I worked hard to buy and pay for him and that stereo (as basic as it was!) was the first thing I bought for him and it was so hard to see it gone.

After searching for a few minutes we found the non-emergency number for the county sheriff's office and called it in. They told us we could file a report online, but Darren politely (maybe not) told them we wanted someone to come out. It took a few hours, but a sheriff's deputy arrived about 7:30ish that night.

He talked to Darren for a while (I think he thought I was too emotionally fragile to talk to) and then walked out with us to take a look at the car. He looked over the driver's side door with a flashlight (where they got in, and we knew it because it had been left ajar) and noticed pretty quickly that he/they had been wearing gloves and there was pretty much nothing he could do besides report it, so he didn't even look in the car and went on his way. That sucked.

He did explain to us how the schmuck had gotten in and that our door was in fact locked. This was a huge relief to Darren. He had been worrying ALL day that he maybe forgot to lock the door. After he left we went through and cleaned out the car, since it was a pretty big mess with plastic pieces strewn across the front seats. It took them a few tries to get the stereo out (Chuck put up quite the fight), and not only did they tear out the stereo, but they also got two air vents, our defroster button and Darren's tool box (in the back seat) in the process.

I would never wish this upon anyone, unless I really don't like you. And we had just lowered our car insurance to liability only since Chuck is 13 years old. Yea, don't think I'll ever do that again. The good thing is, it could have been much worse. No windows were broken and we still have a car that runs. It will cost us a few hundred dollars to replace all of the parts, but we are grateful that we don't have to replace the whole car.

Crazy what life brings you.