where thieves break in and steal.

Have you ever wondered what your car door would look like without a handle?
No? Me neither. But now I know. 

After a night's sleep that consisted of a few good hours, then a few hours of tossing and turning and wondering if my phone would ring, I fell back asleep around 7:00.  No job so far, so I thought I could sleep a little longer.  The house phone rings a little before 8:00, so I got up and looked at who called, saw it was our neighbor (of dog fame, if you saw that saga on Facebook), then crawled back in bed.  I was just settling back in when my mom came bursting into my room to wake me up and told me that someone had tried to break into my car last night and that I needed to come and take pictures.  I got up, put in my contacts, and wandered out with my camera to take some pictures and survey the damage.  Of course, I was wearing my pajamas and saw more neighbors than average.  But, that's not the point.  Anyway, it appears that the thief (also known as jerk, idiot, and moron) tried just about every way imaginable to get into my car from the driver's side.  They managed to rip the entire handle off, I assume to try and pry the door open.  They tried to stick something down the door from up near the window (like a locksmith would) and tore that rubber up and scratched the window.  They bent up the lock mechanism.  The gouged the keyless entry on the door.  They gouged the piece of plastic/rubber that runs along the bottom of the sides of the car.  They beat the door and window with a rock leaving scratches and dents.  They scratched the passenger door, window, and handle.  In other words, they were very thorough in their damage, managing to hit a variety of .  Here are some pictures:

We called the insurance and police.  The police came around 11:00 and took my report.  They said this falls into a gray area between vandalism and attempted burglary.  I'm pretty sure he filed it as the latter.  He also dusted for fingerprints (which was the only fun part of the experience) and managed to get two and a partial handprint.  A detective will be assigned to the case tomorrow.  Time will tell if they catch the guy. 

After the police were done, I was free to take it to get a repair estimate.  Oh, only $2600.  No big deal.
Thankfully our insurance deductible is $200, so we shouldn't have to pay more than that, which is excellent news.  The repair should take 7 or more days, so I'll be driving a rental car for that time.  Just have to wait on the insurance adjustor to come take a look before anything more can happen.

I'm thankful they didn't actually break in and they didn't steal anything,  That would have been a whole lot bigger of a mess to deal with.  This was plenty. 

For a positive note to end on, I finished paper number three.  Just one more and I'm free!