The Mystery of the Missing Backpack

Today was just not our day. I'm starting to feel very anxious to move, and feeling less safe in what I thought was our nice, quiet neighborhood.

I was a volunteer in S's classroom today, and went to school with him. On our walk home from the school, we noticed one of our neighbors was being arrested. Pleasant, eh? We got home and I realized that I had left my keys and my phone inside and J- being the smart and cautious man that he is, had locked the door before he went to work. So I had S and F leave their backpacks tucked behind the wall and we went to the convenience store across the street to borrow their phone and call J to come home and let us in.

We were gone for all of 15 minutes, just long enough to call J and then buy some water since we were going to have to wait outside in the son for at least 30 minutes before J could come home. We got home and I noticed that S's backpack was missing. Someone had come into our yard and stolen it.

There was nothing valuable in the bag, so it's not a huge deal. The thing that bothers me though, is that the backpacks were not visible from the street/sidewalk. In order to see them someone would have had to come up to our gate- possible with the intention of breaking into the (thankfully) locked house. THAT bothers me a lot more than a missing bag.

S is not all that upset. He has three other backpacks, and several folders that he can take to school with him tomorrow. He's treating this whole situation as a kind of adventure- the way only a five-year-old can. He talks about the "mystery" and wants to solve it, but did not seem bothered when I told him that there was not a very big chance of of solving the mystery.

I'm glad that S is not phased by this but, at the same time, it makes me even more anxious to get out of Vegas!