burgled bug

let me just say that this magical universe seems to have its twisted little heart set on stopping me from giving gifts this christmas.

this past weekend J and i decided to take advantage of our visit to vancouver and do some Big City christmas shopping. at the end of the day we emerged from our final stop to find the window in his car smashed and all of our presents, groceries, back packs (including our clothes, toiletries, etc.) gone.

so, in the sort of cavalier moment that shock often inspires in me, i ran into the adjacent alley way to crawl around in the rainy darkness amongst the used needles, condoms, and broken glass behind the dumpsters and under cars. i even, probably very foolishly, woke up a sleeping street person to ask if he knew where my cash box was -- the one i use at all my fairs, and that contained all of my sales records for the year. he didn't.

this messy half-an-hour did yield our clothing and savoury groceries (no sweet ones, interestingly) and my prized cash-box (emptied of cash, of course), but no presents. when i mentioned this to a friend later that evening she said that i must feel so violated, but honestly i don't. i just feel poor, because i can't afford to replace all the gifts.

but the plot thickens! right after being burgled (a word i adore, by the way), j had to go back over to victoria. i went about my business for the next few days in vancouver and even re-purchased some of the less expensive items that had been stolen, and then set out for victoria myself.

i unloaded my many boxes left over from the craft fair i had done onto my dolly, along with all of the new, precious presents, and headed for the ferry terminal when a sudden, invisible bump up-ended the whole cart and the gifts went flying all over the rainy street. a wonderfully helpful, but, it turns out, freakishly iron-fisted old man came running over to help me and happily busied himself with mangling each of my soggy gifts in his crushing paws before cramming them quickly into the box i held. he was very cheerfully and benevolently destructive, though, and heart-breakingly kind to come and help at all, but i give up: everyone gets oranges and fingerknitting in their stocking this year, and that's all.