It all started on Thursday....

[nwhiker]

That photo is of my house key, and key ring.

I started this chain on events on Thursday morning. I'd been shopping and was back home, sitting in the car either listening to the end of an audiobook chapter, or having an NPR "driveway moment". I remember looking at my house keys in my hand, and, as I got out of the car to get my stuff, I started thinking about how much I loved my key ring, and when I'd bought it, way back in the fall of 1997, at the North Bend outlet mall, with baby Anne-Chloe in her blue fleece suit. I loved that key chain. It clipped to diaper bags and backpacks, to purses and jeans belt loops. I've never found another one like it. I took the photo to send to a friend, iirc, who was looking for something like that for her key-loss prone daughter.

Yesterday morning, I went to my local wildland park, like many mornings over the past 20 plus years. I stashed my house keys in the center console -yes, I know, stupid- and went on my usual ramble through the woods. I like being alone so I idly checked out the two cars in the parking lot. A white Subaru, empty, and a teal mid-80s Honda Accord, with engine and lights on, two people inside. I didn't think much about it.

I did my loop, and as I was very close to the trailhead, a women came up to me asking "do you own a blue car?"

Oh fuck. I called 911 as I broke into a semi-trot for the last 1/4 mile of the trail.

Yeah, my car was broken into, rear passenger window smashed. Papers all over the place. I could not immediately locate my registration for this year. Why yes, the glove box was filled with papers with our address on it.

And needless to say, my house key, on my beloved key ring, was gone.

It had started to rain while I was on my walk and it was getting worse.

I asked 911 dispatch to send an police car to my place. She told me I should call Redmond police (local to the park), I live a few miles away in unincorporated county. I told her I had cats and was going home, I'd make the police report later.

Called dh, gave him the scoop. Headed back to the house.

When I got there, there was a county sheriff car parked... in front of my neighbor's house. No sheriff inside. I left my car on the street and got to the house. Nothing looked amiss, and most importantly, no cats looking pathetic in the rain.

Door 1. Locked.

Door 2. Locked.

Door 3. Locked.

The cats were presumably locked in and fine. Major sigh of relief.

I texted dh to let him know the house was still locked, and then up to talk to the sheriff who was now in his car.

Turns out when you plug our address into a search engine (bing, google), it brings up a photo of our neighbor's house. Ooops. So the sheriff made sure their house was secure, heh, while I checked mine.

So year. The rest of the afternoon was spent freaking out, getting plastic over the window, freaking out, making a police report, freaking out, setting up an appointment with the glass people ($240, and I can drop my car off any time between now and Tuesday if I don't need and they can keep it locked up in their garage away from thieves, and the freaking RAIN), freaking out, calling insurance, freaking out, calling a locksmith who couldn't be there until this afternoon, freaking out.. and being sad.

Stupid to be sad over a key ring, ya know? But I'd had it for so long, because I loved it so much, just one of those silly objects that do exactly what they're supposed to, work really well, and so follow you through the years, or in my case, decades.

Anyhow. Since the locksmith couldn't get here until today, dh went to the hardware store and bought a rekeying kit, and rekeyed all 5 locks himself. Bless him.

I feel very stupid. The reason I left my keys in the car was simple. I'd dropped them one day while pulling out my phone, and I was afraid of doing that again. The bag I carry when hiking doesn't have a good place to clip them too, and I wasn't wearing jeans.

Nothing in my car was visible from the windows, by the way. This was no a OMG, look at all the stuff! thing, it was just random druggies no doubt looking for cash. There was none in the car, and they left the two or three dollar bills that were floating around the glove compartment, I guess they weren't worth their time.

When I called Redmond police, they did say that they would have come out to look for prints. I'd gotten in the car, touched stuff and didn't even think about that, since the time our house was broken into, nobody bothered with that. Though to be 100% honest, I probably would have skipped it anyhow, since my priority as soon as I found out was getting back to make sure the cats were safe.

Still feeling very unsafe in the house, even though I know the locks are changed. However, we were very very lucky. I was tromping through the woods for almost two hours, they could have cleaned out the house and left my cats to wander for that whole time.

It was a good key ring. I'll miss it.