Apparently all "robbers" don't wear stripes

There was big excitement around the Dungan household yesterday morning. Just minutes after finishing up my morning blog post, I made my way upstairs from my morning ritual of passing out good morning kisses to the kiddos, picking out the school clothes (Lynley says I am capable of this because they are uniforms), tickling the late sleepers, and hopping into the shower. Everything was going perfectly. For a change, everyone on Monday morning seemed to be in gear. Kiddos were all well on their way to being dressed and Lynley was half "makeuped."

Not to be the one dragging my feet, I quickly made my way downstairs to begin making breakfast for the kiddos. As I crested the top of the stairs I looked out the window to find a car parked at the end of our driveway.

Strange, I thought.

I stood there for a moment trying to process this information. For the life of me, I could not come up with a good reason that someone should be parked there. I quickly made my way downstairs and out the front door to investigate. Sure enough, as I stepped out on the front porch, I saw a male walking from the side of our house along the drive way.

"Excuse me, mayI help you?"

"No, I was just looking for my dog?"

Apparently, the cold air outside had frozen my brain a bit. I accepted his answer and stepped inside. Once inside, the gerbils started turning the little wheel that operates my brain. I started to put 2 and 2 together.

Hold on, he was carrying something and he put it in the back of his car. It wasn't a dog!

I peeked out the front window. He was still in his car. From the angle I could not make license plate. The car was a brown 4 door sedan. It looked somewhat like a Ford Taurus-y looking Chevrolet that had been "pimped." It had big shiny chrome rims that I am quite sure cost about as much as the car itself.

This still was not adding up. As he pulled away I grabbed my keys off of the counter. Once he was about half way up the street I made a beeline outside and over to our cars. Sure enough, Lynley's car had been cleaned out.

I bolted back indoors grabbed my cell phone and shouted to Lynley "I just caught breaking into your car and I am going to go follow him and get his license plate."

I slammed the door behind me, hopped in the car and took off. At this point he was long gone. I summoned all of my deduction skills and quickly came up with a plan. I know the TSA is not allowed to profile security threats. However, I am not the TSA. I made my best bet at where he was going and took off in the opposite direction. Within 2 minutes I was at the intersection of White Settlement and University Drive heading towards Jacksboro Highway. Guess who just happened to be two cars in front of me?

It took a mile or so before I could make my way directly behind him and get the license plates and try to take a couple of shots with the camera from my iPhone. Not knowing whether or not he had a gun I thought it best not to follow him any further. For all I knew he was driving slowly because he was trying to grab the gun under his seat. I pulled off to put some distance between he and I. Unfortunately, he crossed the next intersection during a yellow light at the next intersection and I was not able to follow him any further.

Lynley had called 9-1-1 and the very next thing I knew I was talking to the police. I quickly made my way home and met them at our door.

The police took our statement and before they left they had already identified the suspect. Apparently, the direction he was going was right towards his home.

And who said profiling wasn't a good idea.

We inventoried our cars and the next thing I knew, I was back out the door with the kiddos on our way to school.

I am still yet to hear anything although I know they have identified the suspect. I don't really expect to get anything back but, who knows, we may get lucky. I hope to hear something in the next few days.

What idiot robs cars at 7:30 in the morning on a weekday anyway?

There was actually some good to come out of this. Everyone is okay. Furthermore, it was a great learning experience for the kiddos. Ainsley was sure all "robbers" as she called them wore black and white stripes or black hoods. Now she knows better although I do fear that she assumes that all people that drive brown 4 door sedans may in fact be robbers. She also heard me give a description of the man to the police officer and may also assume Hispanic males in their late teens or early 20s may also, in fact, be robbers.

We are working to correct this.

Wow, excitement, education, and purpose and it wasn't even 8:00 AM.