Yesterday afternoon Alastair’s brother and sister-in-law were burgled. We found this out when we logged into Facebook and saw photos of their house, and how it had basically been ransacked. They took all the goodies, including laptops, jewelry, Playstation, Wii, the lot.
I’ve had my car broken into a few times (and once I was stupid enough to leave my briefcase in said car break-in, thereby losing my laptop, phone, wallet, and yes my passport, all while I was in a foreign country. Very clever, no?). I’ve also had my home burgled before. It’s a depressing and horrific state of affairs which, even if you’re covered under insurance, still feels awful. Being robbed is bad enough, but the worst part of it is the very basic thought that Bad People Have Been In Your House Touching Your Things. They may have had dirty fingertips. They may have been the kind of people that would harm you if you caught them in the act. The truth is though, the fact that someone came in your inner sanctum is bad enough.
Talking about it last night, you realize just how impractical you can be when it comes to property. Alastair’s sister-in-law had all of her jewelry stolen because, typically, she had it in a box in her dresser. As you do. As I do, in fact. I don’t have lots of expensive jewelry but I do have some shiny things and yes indeed, they are in a box in my dresser in the bedroom. This is because that’s where you keep things, you don’t typically get dressed and then think “I wonder what necklace would match this, I’m going to go into the garden shed and dig it out from under the weedkiller, see if I have something that brings out the blue in my shirt.” I decided I will have to move the jewelry though – I was thinking of piling it in the bathroom under my tampons (no thief would want to go through a basket of feminine products) but then realized if it was in the box of the hated fiberglass tubes that I wouldn’t want to go through them either.
Although Alastair’s never had his home been robbed he has had his garage broken into, and been around his family when they had an incident. Years ago he went on holiday with his father and stepmother in France. They all rented a house together and spent several weeks in the middle of nowhere. He was telling me about it last night.
Apparently during the stay their stepmother suspected they’d been robbed.
“The garage door is open and the lawnmower’s missing,” she said urgently. “We should ring the police.”
“Why would someone steal a lawnmower in the middle of nowhere?” came her answer. “Particularly an old rusty one?”
She then decided to take investigative matters into her own hands and was searching the ground outside of the garage. When asked what she might be doing, Inspector Clouseau replied: “Looking for evidence.”
It turned out she was looking for cigarette butts. This, because the French smoke. This, because clearly all burglars smoke.
My imagination went into overdrive, and I pictured the scene.
So while a burgler was casing the joint, wearing his black and white striped T-shirt and his beret at a jaunty angle, he decided he needed a nicotine fix. He took out his pack of Gauloises – certain that due to his Frenchness he would not be caught – and smoked incessantly while plotting to emancipate an overly used piece of ride-on agrarian maintenance equipment. When he saw the family leave to walk to the village to stock up on garlic, stinky cheese and baguettes they would tuck under their arms like rogueish natives, he saw this was his chance.
“Zut alors!” the robber would have said. This because every French textbook ever teaches us that the French, they use “zut alors!”, which is akin to us saying “golly gee willackers” or, at a stretch “aw, shucks”. Apparently the English speaking world thinks the French are stuck in the 1950’s wondering where Wally and The Beav are, with their expletives to match. The truth is I’ve known many native French speakers and not once has someone ever said “zut alors”, not even when I offered to pay them to say it, so presumably the textbooks try to teach non-native French speakers to say “zut alors” in order to make us sound like assholes to the natives.
So back to the robber.
“Zut alors!” he would exclaim, stamping out the last of his cigarette. “Zees is my chance! To hell weeeth my Citroen! A deux chevaux ees too fast, le bastarde, all I need is 3 ‘orsepower!”
He would tiptoe into the garage, looking only at his fabulous prize of a 20 year old piece of shit lawnmower. He would silently slide onto the seat and, upon finding the key in the ignition, could be heard to happily exclaim “Sacre bleu!” (that other old French adage they teach us that the French say, in between drinking coffee out of bowls and smearing Nutella on their fish dishes). “Eet ees mine!” He would then power up and gleefully ride into the sunset with his prize, all at a stately pace of 5 miles per hour and leaving a clean swatch of freshly mown Pronvence hillside in his wake.
The truth is the landlord of the property later said when called that he’d taken the lawnmower to mow his other properties and would be returning it later.
When Alastair rang his brother and sister-in-law to see how they were doing last night, he had a brief conversation and when he hung up, he turned to me.
“They’re getting pissed,” he said.
Fair dues. When you’ve been burgled, there’s nothing to do but drink.
-S.
PS – French stereotypes in this post are used to inpart the hilarity of searching for cigarette butts and not because I think that every Frenchman walks around looking like Marcel Marceau and plotting to steal appliances. Honest. Now the Swedes, on the other hand…
Brilliant, just brilliant!
We were burgled once – though not properly burgled as they only had a chance to grab my wallet out my handbag before the burglar alarm went off. The worst thing was that icky icky feeling of someone horrid touching *my* things and walking over *my* kitchen worktops with their nasty thieving feet :(
I got my wallet back 6 months later- there was only 50p in there and no credit cards and someone found it in a hedge around the corner from the house. I still use it today!
I recall a skit from a comedian on Radio 4 about a month ago in which he discussed this exact issue:
“The worst thing is knowing that someone has been in your house, going through your things … no, the worst thing is that they’ve nicked your f****n things – if they’d just been having a browse, it’d be a bit weird but I’d be slightly happier about the whole situation.”
Not to say I don’t agree with you (and sympathise with the burgled) but as we’re putting a comedic spin on things …
What does a stereotypical Swede say??!
I suppose it could be worse, they could have stolen all the wine too.
I’ve had my house broken into and so I know your in-law’s pain, however, your French burglar story still had me laughing out loud! Sacre bleu!
Oh, ugh. Yes, I do know that violated feeling, and for us it was only the car that got busted into. Very disappointed thieves, too – all they got was some very non-fenceable stuff (epees, jackets and masks, and a couple of pairs of sneakers).
Damn it. Now I am hungry for a chocolate croissant.
We Swedes embrace our stereotypes.
Being burgled isn’t fun. I had just come back from a long overseas trip, and planning on moving in with my boyfriend (who is now my husband), and I literally had my bags packed and standing up in a neat little row, full of awesomeness that comes from having been shopping overseas for the last 6 months. Yes they chose that specific opportune moment to break in and steal not only my suitcases but the vcr (this was 1999), dvd player, and most of the clothes that I had yet to pack still in my cupboard by throwing it onto the bed, and then making off with the duvet, clothes enceit and all. I’m still smarting from that one.
I laughed my ass off at your stripey shirt and beret at jaunty angle bit.
Hey! I’m an archetypal swede, and I’ve never owned a lawnmower in my life, nor, coming to think of it, have I had the necessary lawn to go with it. Thus no need to purloin the pesky things. Now, were there an unattended bookshelf…
C
The fact that someone goes into another’s property, and takes things that belong to someone else-things that they worked for-boils my blood. It just sickens me.
Oh, and you forgot about the bandit mask. All good French burglars wear one, I’m sure of it.
Stereotypes be damned …. We all know that every swede takes like the Swedish chef from the muppet. Prob looks like him too
My husband was burgled back in college by the craziest burglars known to man. They made off with some things, like his customized Strat, that made sense, and left things, like my acoustic guitar, that would have been likely. (They stole the crappy garage-sale special acoustic guitar that was right next to it. I can only surmise that my painted case made it too trackable.) They took the games, including the one that was IN the console, but left the console. They riffled through the Trivial Pursuit. They stole half of the computer speaker setup. They stole the Jello packets. They fed the cats. They stole a visitor’s socks— which almost makes sense, since they stole several small items— and underwear, which is a major ¿WTF? They stole all of the CDs, except for the Nine Inch Nails, which they broke in half and threw in the backyard.
One of the responding cops called the thieves “heathens” when they found that broken CD. The other one said, “If they stole MY guitar, there aren’t enough bullets in my gun.”
They never did catch them, but we’re pretty sure we know the instigator— somebody one of the roommates unwisely brought home. No proof, no arrest.
Being burgled violated me. And mine.
My wife puts her jewelry in pockets of various coats in our closets. How she remebers what is where I’ll never know. Result of all her jewelry being burgled in the past.
So sorry your almost-in-laws were burglarized. To add insult to injury, when you call the police, they’ll come over and make a huge mess trying to collect evidence to figure out who did it. Which happens…oh, maybe…10% of the time? I hope they catch the bastards!
Your burglary description was hilarious!
I keep my important jewelry in the lockbox, which obviously, the thieves will take too. Oh well, at least it will take them a while to get the thing open.
We had a news segment last summer about a rash of car burglaries. Not once during the segment did they state the most obvious advice…do not leave your valuable belongings in your car. Take them into the house with you.
I know it isn’t funny to them, but you’ve brought humor to the situation!
Being robbed fucking sucks. Being robbed by French mimes actually sounds okay, though.
I’ve been robbed in almost every possible way, but the creepiest is having the house burgled… and yes, they did toss the undie drawer…
Been there… played that game! My burglers were caught when they tried to pawn our laptops without knowing the “impossible to guess” passwords. Idiots. Insurance covered everything but we moved shortly afterwards because I felt so violated. I couldn’t stand to even be in the home “I” built from the ground up… sold it and hauled ass out.
I’ve been burgled twice. Once the person involved worked his way four floors up, climbing from patio to patio. (Our apartment building was secured access.) I only lost $17 (found the wallet, which had been cast aside – they didn’t take the debit or credit card), but the nurse living upstairs of me had her car stolen – they found her car keys. This had all happened while we were apparently sleeping on a hot summer night, so most of us had windows open one way or another, not expecting a human fly to pay us a visit. They never caught the thief, though they did find the car eventually, abandoned after an accident with it on northbound Interstate 5.
The second time was a couple of years ago. They stole electronics – primarily both my own and my daughter’s personal laptops, her NES, and a couple of other nonessentials. They broke through my daughter’s downstairs bedroom window while we were all gone for the day, so she wouldn’t sleep in her bedroom for a couple of months after that. The thieves were a couple of teenage boys looking for quick cash, and they were arrested and convicted.