When it rains, it pours

The events that took place last week could be summed up by the idiom 'When it rains, it pours'. It was the first time, I was leaving home after the birth of our cutie pie. That was slightly depressing enough, but I brushed it aside as a mere part of life where we have to do things leaving our loved one's behind. For some reason the two and half hour drive that morning was exhausting and I desperately wanted a rest. After work at around 6:30 PM, I went to a grocery store to pick some vegetables where my brother joined me. He moved into a new apartment in Center city and I do not have a copy of the key. So we go to his bachelor pad together and what do we find. The main door to his apartment was open slightly without the lights on. My suspicious brain triggered something was amiss. I ordered my brother not to enter the apartment outright and to knock the door to find if anybody answers. There was no response. So my brother went inside and thought everything was fine. But my mind was reading something else. There was lots of stuff thrown on the bed, every drawers from his side table were on the floor. The doors to his friends room and to the basement were open. There were screws on the floor with a non-uniform wooden wedge next to them. I looked at the door casing and quickly knew that the wooden wedge was a result of a forced open of the door. The burglar broke open the main door with sheer force and my brother's room with an iron chair from the kitchen.

We called the landlord and dialed 911. They both turned about two hours later. The cops think it was some homeless guy looking for cash and valuables like jewelry that could be cashed quickly. He concluded that in few minutes as nothing was missing from the other bedroom, whereas every valuable that was in my brother's room iPod, couple watches, currency, loads of coins were stolen. His roommate had valuable items like printers, camera, projector etc but just not valuable enough to the homeless guy. To top it off there was a cassette FM radio player missing from the living room.

The next day was even worse. The news broke that they were plans to layoff 500 employees at work. Then at the end of the day I was crossing a road while I was walking to my car. There were a bunch of cars waiting at the signal. A kitten jumped out of nowhere and slid under the tire of a car. It was drizzling and it was chilly. The cat thought that corner of the car tire was cozy. As soon as this happened, the signal turned green and car raced off. While the car was moving, the cat moved an inch, hesitated and stayed back only to be driven over by the car. The kitten was crushed. It jumped thrice in the air and that's it, laid there on the floor dead. All this happened in a few seconds and I was still frozen. It was saddening and I was feeling sick now.

I reached the car and was thinking what else could go wrong. I put everything in the trunk and sat in the car to start the ignition. Lo and behold I see an envelope behind the glass in front of me. It was a parking ticket. Guess what! My inspection expired and the PPA granted me a violation for the expired inspection. I did not know how I let my car inspection sticker expire. Nor did I know that parking authorities issue ticket for the same. I was depressed now. I was even superstitious if all these events were omens and something worse was yet to come. I even entertained postponing my ride back home. I spent a few minutes in silence so as to gather myself and set off to one last stop - the Indian grocery store on my way home. I am so glad the week passed by quick after those dreadful two days.

But these events only enhanced my belief in the randomness of life and taught me a new lesson - Preventing and protecting oneself against potential huge losses is more important than making several small savings. When you lose money, like in a break-in, the losses are typically huge. They can erode all the small savings that one makes over a period(ranging from months to years) of time. I plan to get myself a renter's insurance and worry less about checking multiple stores for making small purchases.