I was a victim of crime tonight. Well, Ruby and I were. While I was happily chatting about the creative process, borrowing books, and angst at Grumpy’s, some bastard was breaking into poor, lonely Ruby sitting in the parking lot at the Open Book.

Of course the only reason that I know this is because a nice man who lives above Big Brain comics happened to be outside on his balcony smoking a cigarette and noticed the guy. Nice Man immediately called 911 and then waited in the parking lot for the cops to arrive.

“Is that your truck?” he asked Danielle, pointing.

Because I am deaf I thought he said, ‘is that guy drunk?’ and assumed he was pointing at Huey (who is perilously close to being renamed Don Henley). When Danielle said yes and shook her head. I thought, ‘huh, he didn’t seem drunk to me.’

Then Danielle turned around and said, “it’s hers.” Slowly I began to realize what was going on.

“Someone broke into your truck,” Nice Man said. “They took a case out of it, and left it over there. It’s like an emergency kit.”
“Oh,” I said.

The three of us trooped over to collect my case complete with jumper cables and road flares.
“Was it locked?” Danielle asked.
“I don’t know, I might have forgotten to lock it.”
“I don’t think it was locked,” Nice Man said.
“That was stupid of me,” I said.
“Nah, you’re probably lucky,” Danielle said. “They might have broken a window.”

“He probably thought it was a laptop,” I said, grabbing my kit.
“I called the cops,” he said.
“Thank you.”

I took a peek inside Ruby to see if things were in order. They cleared the spare change from my ashtray, along with a button that used to blink and announced that ‘I’m 30’ and a Rufus Wainwright (or maybe The Strokes) ticket stub. The glove compartment was open, but nothing seemed missing. As far as I know the glove compartment has always contained pens, tampons, spare blinker bulbs, and car repair receipts, and still has such contents. The stereo wasn’t monkeyed with at all.

I thanked Nice Man again and was about to climb into Ruby when the police arrived. He took a description of the guy.
“Is anything missing or broken?” the cop asked me.
“No,” I said. “They left the glove compartment open but everything’s there.”

I didn’t tell him about how clearly the perp isn’t very literate because my copy of Jonathan Franzen’s How to Be Alone was left completely undisturbed on the passenger seat. This guy wasn’t nearly entertaining as Officer Hanson from The Great Clyde Break-in of 2000,

I am, obviously, glad that everything turned out a-okay, that both Ruby and I are relatively unharmed. However, I was heebed out all the way home thinking that someone was in Ruby without my permission or knowledge. It’s just kind of ick inducing, you know?