OT : Why i'm paranoid. !

[Flangepart]

Some one left a streach of masking tape across my cars windshield last night.
No damage...but some one touched my car.
Hope it has no weird meaning....
Ever have something like that happen?
You could not gigger it out for the life of you, and though no damage was done...you kept wondering what it ment?

Insert scary music here..................

[Ash]

It's a parallel version of the upcoming movie "The Village".

Instead of a red mark on the front door of your house, you get masking tape on your car.

BEWARE!!!!

[The Burgomaster]

Someone slashed the two tires on the driver's side of my car a few years ago.  I didn't take it as a personal assault, though, because the dirver's side tires (the side facing the street) were slashed on 3 or 4 other cars parked on the same side of the street.  I guess someone thought it was funny to walk down the street in the middle of the night slashing tires.

[trekgeezer]

Hopefully, it means nothing.  My family went  through a break in almost three years ago and it was a good year before we were comfortable leaving the house.  It was only 10 days after 9/11.

My wife got off work at noon on Fridays then and I get this call while I'm eating my lunch at the office from her and she's crying "Someone broke into our house, please come home."

She had come home and the American flag we had attached with magnets was gone and the front porch light was on. When she turned in the driveway she saw the garage door opens he stopped and saw the door to the house open with one of our dinig  chairs knocked over. She backed out of the driveway and went to a neighbors and called the law. She and the neighbor went back (he brought a gun), they looked in but waited for deputy to arrive before going in.

These people had run up, kicked the door in deadbolt and all, ran around, opened the garage and backed a truck in (we found transmission fluid on the floor of the garage). They took all my stereo equipment, TV, VCR, DVD, my computer, and of all things the washer and dryer. The one thing that broke the mood was when the deputy asked my wife "When was the last time you saw the washing machine?"

They destroyed the front door frame, so I had to fasten a 2x4 across it to keep it shut. State Farm was extremely good to us, We got the door fixed the next day and they let us go ahead and get a new washer and dryer immediately.  

I had replacement cost insurance, so I really ended up with better stuff than I had before, but I never thought I would feel violated like that. To think that some crud had been in your house touching your stuff. Plus my computer had a lot of personal pictures and stuff on it, that really bothered me a lot.  My daughter was still in high school and for about three months she would not come home by herself. She would go to a friends and I would call her when I got home. So, I know the feeling of  paranoia.  

We never found out who did it  (although we had suspicions).  Just keep an extra eye out  and hopefully the tape means nothing.  At least they didn't key your car.

[odinn7]

First off: Ash, that was funny, very witty...I'm still chuckling.
Second: Trek, that sounds like it was a harsh experience and I'm sorry something like that had to happen. It's too bad there are people like that running around.

OK, to the topic.  I can't say for sure what it means but I will give a possible explaination which might be way off base, but you never know.
When I was a kid (early teens) we used to run around the area and play stupid games at night. We would sneak up to people's houses or cars or whatever in the dark almost as if we were spys or mercs or something like that. Part of the "mission" was to deliver a blank piece of paper or a newspaper clipping or some other stupid meaningless thing to the area that we were sneaking up to (the house, car, garage). Looking back on that, I think how it's lucky that some nut didn't see us and shoot first and ask questions later. I also always wondered what those people figured the pieces of paper meant. Sure, I was a strange kid.  Generally if we were out to destroy something from someone that did us wrong, we did it with no kind of mystical forewarning. So Flange, it may mean nothing more than that you have some wacky kids in your area that are playing stupid "paramilitary" games.

This reminds me of another thing I used to do that I look back on now and wonder what it was like to be on the receiving end. I used to enjoy scaring the neighbors kids who I couldn't stand. The parents would go away every weekend and leave the kids (a few years older than me) alone and they would have parties and be way too loud and obnoxious. There would be crap on the yard in the morning that I would usually be made to clean up. My father and apparently other people in the area didn't want to call the cops for whatever reason. I took it upon myself to make a tape recording of spoken parts of American Prayer from Jim Morrison played backwards. It sounded really creepy and demonic, I was very proud of my work. After the party would get going and into full swing, I would call them (no caller id back in the good old days) and play this tape for them. The first few times whoever answered would listen for a few seconds and then hang up. A few calls later it was hysteria yelling into the phone to stop calling and leave them alone. After that it was them hanging up right away and then it got to the point where they wouldn't even answer the phone. A few weeks of this and I heard it going around school that they were frightened that they had been marked by a cult and nobody wanted to go to their house. The parties at that house ceased and they were doing it somewhere else. It was fun, I was creative this way. I finally also got them in trouble one weekend when the parents were away and they were partying somewhere else. I had taken the bottles and other crap that I had collected previously and took the liberty of strategically placing them through out their yard and garage to make it appear as if a party had happened. The parents got home and the kids were grounded for 2 weeks. I did place those calls every now and then afterwards just to keep them on their toes. Ah, the good old days.

[Kory]

Most of the cars on my street were covered in flour at some point last night.  

The amount of stupidity and boredom abounding here is beyond my understanding.

[Dave Munger]

Last night, someone got inside my car, messed everything up, emptied the ashtray, and stole my Bible. Maybe lots of people keep money in the ashtray. The Bible was in one of those cloth covers with a zipper, so it might have looked like a purse or something.

[Dave Munger]

Night before last, actually.

[Eirik]

I have a friend who DID something like this once.  We were at a party at someone's house who my friend knew through someone who knew someone.  Basically, we were the two idiots sitting in the back yard draining one of their kegs.  The people had a lawn ornament that was made out of iron.  It was a smiley face attached to a long spike that went into the ground.  My friend stole it as we left.  A few days later he left on a cross-country drive.  The guy took polaroids of this lawn ornament at landmarks all across the country and mailed them to the address of the house he stole it from.  There was one by the Grand Canyon, some cemetary in New Orleans, the Hollywood sign.  He sent like ten.  When he got back, he went over to that house one night and left the thing stuck in the lawn facing the front door.

What kills me is that he never made any effort through his other friends to find out what these peoples' reaction was.  He just dropped off the lawn ornament and let it go at that.  I bet these people thought it was funny and kind of creepy.  They probably still talk about it.

[Brother Ragnarok]

Odinn:  The phone message thing was sheer brilliance, good show.  I agree that caller ID takes all the fun out of life.
A few months ago, my girlfriend had her front driver's side window broken out while her car was in front of her house and we were at the movie theater.  I'm glad I decided to drive that night.
When I went to England in April, I really dug the plane ride, but discovered that I couldn't sleep on the plane.  I'm not the most social person to begin with, and being around that many people made me so edgy that I couldn't fall asleep.

[Yaddo42]

In high school years ago, on an away game trip with the marching band (yep former band geek here) someone slim-jimmed my car doors, and just messed up stuff. Moved the seats out of position, had the lights and wipers set to come on when I came back, turned the radio volume knob all the way up, etc. The only thing they damaged was they broke a plastic connector of the rods running from the inside door handle to the door lock, so the door wouldn't open from the outside.

The replacement part was cheap but took forever to order for some reason and was a pain in the ass to get at inside the door itself to repalce. My car was the only one in the entire parking lot full that was hit, so they were seeking me out most likely. Filed a complaint with the cops, nothing became of it, didn't expect it to, but wanted it on the record in case it or something worse happened again.

My checking around lead to nothing, the best guess I had was that a girl in the band who I didn't get along with and had been into it with within the past couple of days had some friends of hers (she ran with a crowd of hoodlums away from school) do it  while we were both at the game; but even that is a stretch.

[trekgeezer]

Okay, I live in a rural area and for some reason  someone out here takes great joy in bashing people's mailboxes.  It  is a random occurence and I usually go through a couple a year.  

I have this neighbor who is the local  'siding king', I mean he has a commercial on every local news show.  Anyway,  he has this huge house and barn  way back in what used to be pasture land  (it can be seen prominently from the road).  The barn I could put my house in twice and still have room is used a studio for his commercials.

So, I have always wondered why he has a mailbox on the side of the road.  He is the number victim of mailbox pranks.  It kept getting bashed so he got  a box with a thick plastic cover over it . Well one morning my wife is looking outside and the plastic cover from the neighbors mailbox is on ours.  

My box is on a platform between two large posts with my other two neighbors.  My next door neighbor had passed away and her son had taken the mailbox down, so there are only two boxes there now.  Well one evening we were coming home after dark and stopped at the end of the driveway to check the mail and there are three mailboxes.  When I got back in my car I asked my wife if she had seen the siding guys mailbox and she said only the pole.  I guess someone is really bored.  This is a federal offence if you are caught .

[Flangepart]

Thanks guys. This stupid thing realy bugged me. The guy across the street has mentioned bad things happening in the Neiborhood, and my place ain't much, but its all my mom and me have.
I guess its just a prank (The consencice), and Trek , Man i sympithise. Getting your stuff replaced ain't worth the lack of peace of mind. I hope i never have to confront any one. I'm adverse to such stuff by nature.
I have my .357, but i'd just as soon not have to use it for more then target practice.

If i had a rural mail box problim...i'd make a "Shield" of 1/4 in steel for it. Weld it to a steel post, and if they try "Drive by batting practice", well, imagin the surprise!

[trekgeezer]

Someone down the street has one that is made from 4 inch iron pipe on top of  a smaller iron pipe concreted into the ground.  

Luckily it's been over a year since anyone has taken a swing at mine, I guess they grew up and went to college.

[Haze]

I don't know what it is with me, but whenever I drive anywhere, and I'm talking to the end of my drive way even, I just get this creepy thought that I run somebody over every single time. So, sometimes it public places people see me get out of my car, stand there uncomfortably for a few seconds, and then plunge beneath my car and start looking feverishly as if I had lost a contact or something.

I once did this when dropping off my little brother and a friend was with me, I had my little psychotic epsiode and then got back in the car. He just looked at me as I tried to confidently explain that I thought a dead body was stuck under my car. The sheer probability of this is unlikely, but logic doesn't seem to matter.

I'm also not very social, so I have this tick about losing track of conversation because I believe they actually hate me inside.

I make riveting days for therapists.

I can understand the robbery thing, it's happened before in my community and no doubt it will happen again. I tend to obsess over things until any little problem becomesl ife consuming, then I go to sleep and feel better. Hooray.

This probably doesn't make anybody feel better, but it's nice to know that paranoia isn't a minority either.