Today's post is a little unique, primarily because today's post is actually going to be two posts. One from my perspective, and one from Alex's perspective. We both wrote the posts without the other knowing, so we figured we should go ahead and just share both of them. We hope you enjoy, and that you'll check out the other post in today's "series."

We were the victims of burglary. It saddens me to even type that sentence. Broken are my rose colored glasses, from behind which I gaze lovingly upon my town. Gone is my sense of security, and I feel completely violated.

Yesterday Alex discovered that the new copper downspout we just replaced this summer, had been ripped from it's home against the side of our house.

Could it have been worse? Sure! In the grand scheme of things, losing a piece of copper to theft is not a big deal. It will cost us roughly $300 in materials and an hour of Alex's time to replace it. No one was hurt, nothing sentimental was stolen, and our home wasn't broken into.

But knowing that someone out there cased our home, identified the copper downspout as an easy target, and entered our walled back garden without our knowledge leaves me feeling downright uneasy. The fact that no one saw it, and neither our, ahem, guard dog nor we heard so much as a peep.

On a side note, I'd like to take a moment to publicly shame our burglar's sub-par skills. The idiot that stole from us went to a lot more trouble than he needed to, given that we had a ladder in the backyard that he could have used to more easily access the downspout. He also missed the fact that we had the old downspout laying at his feet, because we hadn't yet gotten around to disposing of it/donating it. Here's my message to our downspout bandit: Get a day job, you fuckwit. You know, one that compensates you in exchange for an honest day's work. (Sorry gang. I usually censor my potty mouth in my writing, but today I wanted to give you the unedited version of how I'm feeling.)

Other length of copper that we would have preferred the thief stolen, featured in a photo that really highlights how crappy our backyard looks in places!

The bottom line is that this is a good reminder to be more diligent about home security. We're looking into additional security measures we can add to our home, like a motion sensor light on the side of the house. We also need to remind ourselves (and our neighbors) to lock their doors, arm their security systems, and to look out for one another. Sadly enough, you never know when you might be the next victim of crime.