My office was dead-slow this week thanks to spring break. When my phone rang on Thursday, I expected it to be a student or staff member with a question. I was stunned to hear the caller identify herself as university police. They were calling about my truck.
“Were you parked on X street?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, wondering whether I’d somehow parked illegally and didn’t realize it.
“Did you have a broken windshield when you came to work this morning?”
“Ummm…no. I had a chip in my windshield” I realized this conversation lead nowhere good. I wondered whether UPD always started conversations off this way. Did they ask “Did you have a door and a computer on your desk when you left your office?”
She told me officers were waiting by the car, and that she would tell them I was en route. I grabbed my driver’s license in case I needed to ID myself and my notebook in case I needed to write something down, then hurried the half mile to my car. I tried to imagine what could have possibly broken my windshield, other than an act of malice or a tool flying away from the people working on the building near my car.
I was relieved to see that my windshield wasn’t broken, but this faded quickly when I realized my driver’s side window had been smashed and my stereo taken.
The officers were very nice. They dusted for prints, asked whether I knew anyone who might have done it, and asked me to check the center console to see whether anything had been taken.
“I didn’t think to bring my keys with me,” I said.
The officer paused. “That’s okay, we can just reach in and unlock it.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m used to there being a window there.”
“I understand.”
Once we were done, they waited with the car while I hiked back to my office, got my stuff and told my boss I was taking off early to get my window fixed.
I got the window replaced the same day, for much less of a financial hit than I was bracing myself for. I spent two days accidentally reaching for the void in my dashboard whenever I noticed the silence, and having my girlfriend tell me a story when I missed NPR too much. I picked up another cheap stereo at Best Buy today.
But I just can’t let that go by. I can’t think of any time when I’ve had a door on my desk, with or without a computer!