GratiTuesday - It Could Have Been Worse

If you've been a Nest in the Rocks reader for any length of time, you might remember my Letter to a Thief.  I wrote it about this time last year, right after someone smashed my car window while we ate our Mother's Day lunch and stole my Bible and the bag it was in.

A few days ago, something happened that was eerily similar.

My husband works near our closest big town, and we arranged to meet him there after work to attend a special event.  Not wanting to pay for parking twice, we met up at a major grocery store, where my husband parked his seventeen-year-old, paint-peeling car. He parked under a street light, and we went merrily on our way.

Until late that night, when I had returned home and he was running errands, and he realized that someone had stolen the license plates from the back of his car.

He immediately called the police and returned to the scene of the crime, where he was told that this was a common occurrence in this neighborhood.  Might sound strange, given our history there, bu this is a big commercial area with lots of very nice stores - so who knew??  Apparently two other cars were broken into just in the time it took my husband to return - and he wasn't far away.

My very first reaction, upon receiving my husband's call about his delay in returning home, was utter disbelief - and then to head for the chocolate ice cream in the freezer.

Stress loves chocolate, you know?

But then I tried looking for the positives in all of this, and I realized that there are many.  (Perhaps not as many as I'd like, but they exist, and that's something!)

The cop told my husband that it was okay to drive his car as long as he carried the number of the police report with him.  That made it much easier for him to get home and again the next day as he tried to replace the plates.

He was not stopped by the police AT ALL in the more than twelve hours he was without plates - and he was on several major roads at all hours of the night and day.  A delay could have made him late for work, but all went smoothly.

Turns out replacement plates are WAY cheaper than new windows and Bible bags.  While this was a major frustration, it DIDN'T become a major expense.

And, of course, nobody was hurt.  We were happily watching a baseball game, cheering on our favorite local team, laughing about how my husband always misses the homers, while someone was nefariously stealing a part of my husband's car.  We were a few miles away, and this time, there wasn't even remaining glass on which to get cut.

Instead of spending a whole day cleaning up, it took a few minutes and some minor tools to replace the plates and my husband's car was back in business.

So, if we had to be the victims of a crime once again, at least we came through it fairly unscathed.  It could've been worse - but just in case, we're not parking in that part of town again.

What about you?  What are you looking at the bright side of today??

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