Crime strikes even the littlest bloggers

The GF lives in a gorgeous neighborhood a little over a mile north of me. It's within walking distance of Wrigley Field and is located on a little side street surrounded by very nice neighbors and is essentially a neighborhood where nobody ever gets hurt, there is no crime, and no pack of drunken rowdies drives down the street smashing out the rear windows of every car on the right side of the street.

Until, at least, last night. Having crashed at the GF's pad last night, I left this morning to discover my rear window smashed, along with those of seven other cars. It was quite the bonding experience as I met several of the GF's neighbors and swapped information on which glass companies everyone was using and the quotes we had gotten. Then I had to wait an hour for the GF to wake up so I could get back inside and wait until the service came out*. Once back inside I did breakfast with the GF and her roommate before they left for work. Once they did, I was all alone in their apartment - so I did what any good boyfriend would do in that situation - I did stuff around the house. I washed up the dishes from breakfast and fixed a loose knob on a closet door before settling in with a book that I've been working on for a few months now**.

By the time the service came out it was noon, and I got to watch and learn all the steps involved in removing and replacing windows in a car. It turns out that it's a fairly destructive process, involving smashing out the remaining glass, and using a big knife to slice out the existing adhesive. Frankly, the experience was a little disturbing - like watching a loved one go through surgery***. Eventually I had to leave for a while. Besides, I figured these guys are professionals - by hovering like I was I was probably just annoying them, and one never wants to annoy people working on your car. besides, after they were done I still wasn't supposed to drive it for another two hours to give the adhesive time to set.

So I took a little walking tour of the GF's neighborhood - stopping in at CB2 to browse and Starbucks to kill the last hour. While at Starbucks, I sipped a mocha while people-watching. Mostly pretty normal people, except for the guy who comes in with the 1970's wannabe longish hair, aviator sunglasses, sculpted stubble, and man-sandals. Every inch the hipster - except for the bright pink sleeveless t-shirt that proclaimed "Seventeen Pretty Squad". So close, yet sooo far...

By this time though it was time to get back home and take a shower. But on the way back to my car I saw one more thing that I can't resist mentioning. Obviously, being much more aware of security in the GF's neighborhood, I couldn't help but notice that someone else in the neighborhood didn't quite get the idea of how to secure one's prized posessions [observe picture to the left]...

Yeah, even though the person had the steel cable and padlock required to secure the chair from someone walking off with it, instead of actually wrapping the cable *around* the chair, they had just locked the cable together and then just set the padlock on *top* of the chair...

Hmmmm...ah well, who knows? Maybe it's a very heavy padlock.

* Before 7:00 there is no waking the GF - it simply cannot be done with tools available to civilians.
** I gave it to the GF so I only read it when I'm over there - I'd feel guilty borrowing it back
*** Particularly the point where they used the pry bar to break loose the underhousing