Are you sitting down?  I am.  I need to when I tell this story.  All you R&R Mom regulars know that we just moved into our new house.  Brand new house.  Got that?  Good.  Well, on night 5 in said BRAND NEW HOUSE we were hit by a random arson attack.  Yep.  You heard me right.  ARSON.  Middle of the night some punks in our alley decide to set a car ablaze right next to our BRAND NEW GARAGE.  Our poor neighbors lost their BRAND NEW SUV.  Lucky for us the quick arriving Fire Department saved the BRAND NEW GARAGE from nothing more than some cosmetic damage.  Nothing like a little charring on the cedar siding and the BRAND NEW GARAGE DOOR.

Just a police incident, that’s all.

We were lucky, very lucky as things could have been much worse of course.  No one was hurt, the arsonists were dumb and seemed to leave plenty of evidence for the police and the damage was minimal (besides the obvious written-off aforementioned SUV).  The drag now is that we’re in the Insurance Vortex of claims adjusters and contractors and fire investigators and case numbers.  For example, our neighbour is working now with the car insurance to replace the vehicle.  She is fascinated by the statement “Can you drive the car?”  Ummm, yeah if its being pulled by a tow truck.  It was torched stupid!  The engine melted into our driveway and the front seat is just a metal frame.  I myself had a delightful (she says sarcastically) conversation with the Insurance Adjuster who basically accused us of having enemies out to get us.  Why thank you most professional smarty pants for suggesting what the POLICE have called a random attack as being something more nefarious and shaking my sense of security to sleep peacefully IN MY OWN BED!  I’m sure this is the case as the Arsonists also had it out for our BRAND NEW neighbor down the lane who lost his fence.

I can’t blame the poor insurance man.  He’s just doing his job (poorly).  The real bad guys are the actual bad guys.  The dickhead in my alley with the can of lighter fluid, up to no good.  We speculate what motivated this little scumbag to do so much damage for no reason.  Fortunately, they weren’t motivated by hurting people as the fires were far from where we were all asleep in our beds.  But still, if the fire department had arrived just a few minutes later things could have gotten much much worse.  What was the point aside from the thrill of watching someone else’s hard earned property burn?  The fact is that its just stuff, stuff that can all be replaced.  Its just the senselessness of it all that baffles me.  My hope for that deranged bugger is that they get the help they need to deal with whatever demons cause them to behave this way.

Regardless, lets not take the whole house “warming” thing so literally.  A nice banana bread would be a better welcome to the neighborhood gift.