The Burglars 小偷

When I was young
we used to put
alarms on our doors
and screens like a burglar net 

now that I'm older I'm sure that's absurd
that's the word for the man
who collects
who's he stealing from next
-Animal Collective

This is what the burglars saw.
That jewelry is what the burglars got.

One Thursday morning, the sky was wild with sunshine. We were feeling pretty sunny ourselves looking forward to a weekend in Santa Cruz, California. Since July 2021, the three of us - BirdMAN, me, and five-year old Dumpling- have been living with my parents. Sometimes…getting away is just nice. So we spent the morning packing and preparing. We locked up the doors, shut the garage door, put the dog outside, and drove away with not a care in the world.

We didn't worry too much about leaving the house unattended. In the 38 years that my family has lived in this house, neither have they been robbed or feared being robbed. The greatest worry of uninvited intruders came from the skittish skunks that occasionally spray the dog or the rattlesnake slithering amongst the hydrangeas. Oh, and those pesky squirrels that love to feast on the summer tomatoes. A burglar? Nahh. We often left the garage door open all day and forgot to lock the doors.

I was so unconcerned about robbery that I had stashed a fine booty of gold and jade (along with a mismatch of cheap jewelry from Target and H&M) in a jewelry box . That box sat on top of a dresser. In the closet. In plain view. In the most obvious of spots for jewelry.

Those guys were strong! This deadbolted door didn't stand a chance.

Sometime between 10:30 am that morning and 5 pm that evening, intruders bashed in the back door and entered the house through the garage. They skittered like frantic ferrets on the hunt scarcely noticing the array of family photographs hanging in the hallway. The sheepish grins of my nephews as little boys. The black and white photos of my sisters and me as teenagers. A wedding photograph of me wearing a Swarovski necklace and a delicate gold bracelet.

I will never see that Swarovoski necklace and delicate gold bracelet ever again.

After pillaging my jewelry stash, as well as swiping an old Timbuk2 backpack presumably to pack the loot, those sneaky crooks ransacked my dad’s bedroom. They upturned and scattered the contents of the drawers and the closet. They probably were dismayed to find no gold jewelry, but elated when they came upon a two firearms. One was a Smith & Wesson 357 Magnum revolver gifted to my dad from his younger cop brother. The other was an old rifle that my dad bought as a teenager.

By some miracle, they did not bother with my mom’s room (my parents keep their stuff in separate bedrooms). They would have made off with a jackpot of gold and jade. Even so, they scored big in this old country house in the middle of nowhere. In the end, they made off with all my jewelry (both fine and costume), a revolver and rifle, photography lights, a stash of battery chargers, and birdMAN’s road bike. We estimated the monetary value stolen at about $18,000.

The cops profiled the burglars as two or three young men from South Sacramento or the Bay Area. These types of criminals look primarily for three things: jewelry, guns, and money. The burglars never stay in a house for long, maybe ten or fifteen minutes. They are long gone should there be a silent alarm and the police show up. Little did those crooks know in our house, they could have taken a nap and helped themselves to a sandwich with time to spare.

So here’s the lesson: Do not leave thousands of dollars worth of gold and jade in a box on a dresser—even if you live in the middle of nowhere. Other tips from the cops are: leave the lights on at night, get an alarm system, and put valuables in a heavy duty safe.

For about a week after the burglary, I was feeling pretty foolish. Would I leave thousands of dollars of cash lying around? No, of course not! Yet that is what I did with all my gold and jade. Oh my heart hurts thinking about the simple gold chain and oblong shaped jade that my grandmother gifted me as a baby. My baby jade being handled by some sneaky, no-good, BAD guy! Oh that makes my blood boil!

Oh how stupid of me.

No, not stupid, a friend pointed out. Innocent.  Well, I guess I am not so innocent any more.

Chinese Word of the Blog: 小偷 Xiǎotōu
English Translation: thief
Example Sentence: 几个小偷偷了我的珠宝！Jǐ gè xiǎotōu tōule wǒ de zhūbǎo
English Translation: Thieves stole my jewelry!

My jewelry boxes emptied.
What will they do with my wood medallion earrings I got in Cambodia?

They abandoned the pink bike, but took off with birdMAN's road bike.

The golf club got abandoned on the way.  From this, we know the getaway route. They hopped the fence and trekked through theproperty.