Stop Thief!

Early this morning, at about 6:30, when I got up to get a drink of water, I surprised a thief who had broken into our back yard. This is not the first time we have been robbed. A few years ago in Seattle, our garage had been burglarized and thousands of dollars of tools were stolen. This proved to be much less disastrous.

Those are his shoes. This is apparently what happened. He came onto the deck, sat down in our conveniently placed plastic chair and removed his shoes, so he could squeeze into the opening of our backyard gate. We have ordered one-way glass, but it has not been installed yet.

While inside, he opened one of the storage compartments, but the natural gas tanks would have been impossible to steal. Then, he either deficated or threw up, big time. Now the reason that I can't be sure is that Denise forbids me to smell it and make a certain identification (you know how women are). If it was throw-up, then it came as a result of my turning on a bathroom light and flushing the toilet, which would have surprised the sh** out of him. Then I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and looking out the window, saw someone crouching just under the window, outside the locked gate. I shouted at him and he took off running (without his shoes, as I would find out later). By the time I unlocked the front door and the front door gate, he was long gone, painfully, I hope.

In Uruguay, crime against persons is not all that common, but theft is. As I sit here with my coffee and write this post, it is most satisfying to think that the thief got away with nothing, and lost his shoes in the bargain. I guess you could say, in this case, that crime doesn't pay. Or that you wouldn't want to be in his shoes (sorry, I couldn't help myself).

Since that early morning visit, we have increased security. We have added additional motion sensors, exterior security lights and installed glass in the parrila openings. Next week we will install broken glass on the only accessible garden wall and that will help to eliminate unwanted guests. You can never prevent such a thing from happening, but you can make it less desirable.

This has been the Sunday morning crime report from Marindia.