Well, I will be staying in Washington for longer than I had previously thought!
My passport and identity documents (not to mention credit cards and the like) were stolen on Friday from my Grandmother's car while we were at North Beach in Deception Pass State Park near my Grandparents' home in Anacortes. I even saw the thieves, who saw me put my purse in the trunk of Grandma's car. I felt very uneasy about putting my new purse in the car, but I shrugged it off. I'd just returned from three weeks in Colombia and figured I was being paranoid.
Well, I wasn't!
When we got back from the beach, my Grandma's window had been broken in and the thieves had stolen NOTHING in the car, except my purse from the trunk, so it was clearly the two suspicious looking guys that had seen us putting the purse in the car earlier.
I'm pretty upset about the whole thing. I was supposed to fly home on Tuesday, but I had to reschedule my flight so I would have time to get a new passport. I really hope that I'm able to get a new one with the documents that I have here. It's amazing how many pieces of secondary I.D. that they expect you to have! I called the State Department and they told me I needed pieces of photo identification (preferably) with my name, place of birth and signature. I don't really have any of this, because the thieves STOLE MY I.D.! Arggh.
What's really frustrating is that I'm now totally open to identity theft. I mean, they have my passport and driver's license! Plus, if they have the intelligence to do a google search, they'll find my website immeadiately. Message to the theives: If you want to keep my purse, go ahead! But please send me my documents! And next time you might want to determine whether there was anything valuable in the vehicle before you bash the windows in. It's a tremendous amount of effort to expend for virtually no reward (I didn't have a dime in my purse). The purse itself was the only thing worth anything--it's probably being sold on eBay as we speak.
Oh well, hopefully by Friday I will have all new identification documents. But I have to say this experience has been extremely disheartening. I mean, what kind of person would break in the window of an 79 year old woman's car? It's about as parasitic as it gets. Real criminal masterminds, throwing a rock through granny's windshield.
I was pretty peeved at first. I still am, though I comfort myself by remembering that what goes around comes around. And hopefully, I'll be able to get a passport so that I can return home! I have a lot more sympathy for people without documents right now. It sucks!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Stolen Documents
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4 comments:
What a bummer Margaret. This is a good reminder to all of us who think our personal items are safe in our cars. I do this all the time too. I hope your documents come through quickly!
Nancy
Thanks, Nancy! I'll keep you posted!
huge sympathies Margaret! How awful for you both. I hoep your Gran wasn't too badly shaken.
It happened to me once when my daughter was a baby. A friend could see that I needed to get out of the house on a lovely summer day so took me and my daughter and he and his son to a local Roman villa. When we had wandered around and let the children play, we returned to his car. The window had been smashed in and they had got to the trunk via the car and taken a computer from the trunk and a bag from the car.
We were shaken but I was relieved when he said that the computer was obsolete and was in the car to go to the dump, and that the bag only contained his son's dirty nappy and some changing bits. As he put it "they just took crap". The broken window had to be paid for though and like you, the thieves had gained little.
In these times identity theft is rife. Do make sure everyone knows yourbag was stolen and that you expect a phone call before any loans etc are taken out in your name. You just can't be too careful.
So sorry this has happened to you.
Ugh! I'm sorry Margaret! I hope everything gets straightened out!
My dad does photography part time and a few years ago he was doing a wedding and some people broke into his car and stole some of his photography equipment. It was worth at least $1000 and some of it (the film camera bodies in particular) was irreplacable. Frustration city. Hope these guys are brought to justice!
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