It had been a long night. Less than quality decisions had been made. Morning had arrived unexpectedly and preparations had to be begun. It was day one of the Big Phat Phnom Penh Hat Ultimate Frisbee Tournament 2014. Being Prime Minister of Phnom Penh Ultimate I shouldn’t be late nor unprepared. Cleats. Socks. Money… where did I put my money. Shorts from last night? Nope. Tables, drawers? Nope. Thinking… so hard. Head hurts.
For some reason I decided to take a look outside. That’s when a story began to come together…
This is what I came outside too. I had my laundry hung as I usually did. Yes, with the windows open. But what were these things on top of my laundry lines?
Ah, I see. A hook. A metal bar combined with one of my hangers makes a pretty sweet, long hook. Thieves. Time to evaluate my losses. What would they want to be hooking with this tool? Exactly what they did hook. My keys. I found my keys in the keyhole of my front door. Very luckily I had the door deadbolted on the inside. Otherwise they’re in my apartment (actually, looking at my door now, they probably could have unbolted my door by reaching behind my door from the window. Pretty glad they didn’t notice). So they weren’t coming in. What was their next option for maximizing their profits for the evening?
Maybe it has something to do with my neighbor’s running shoes. Not sure why she would have taken the shoelace out of one of them and not the other. Hmmmmm…
Ah, I see. So our thieves used another of my hangers and bent it into a circle. They used the shoe lace to attach the hanger to a pvc tube. Then they used my underwear to make a basket. Voila! An awesome long basket tool. It’s use is being demonstrated by my landlord’s wife. Not sure where the pvc or the metal rod from the hook tool came from. Must have been brought with them.
They used that basket to reach through my window and grab a wad of cash (~$200) that I had sitting on my desk in my living room. Jerks.
Looks like they climbed on top of a car, jumped a fence, climbed a wall… Not sure exactly what they did to get so close to my apartment, but it seemed pretty acrobatic.
I wasn’t the only one who was victimized that night. My landlord’s mother lost around $150 and some other folks lost shoes that they had left in front of their apartment.
I keep my windows closed now.
