Armed Robbery and the Great Shampoo Heist

This afternoon I was playing with Devin outside in our gated garage area. I saw a taxi drive by slowly, but didn't think anything of it. I also noticed a well dressed man standing at an apartment halfway up our block. All of a sudden I saw a young guy come around the corner of our block and start hurrying up our street. As soon as I saw him, I knew that something didn't feel right about the whole situation. Sure enough, the young guy went running up to the business man, pulled a pistol out of his pants, cocked it, and started hollering at the man! After doing a little jig, the man handed over his cell phone and wallet. The thug started running back down the street, and I quickly pulled Devin inside the house. As the guy ran by our apartment, we made eye contact. I stared him down, and he quickly pulled the hoodie of his jacket up over his head. Then the robber looked back up the street and noticed that the man he had just robbed was coming after him! The robber started swearing and hollering at the man to turn around and go back. By this time Missy was with me at our door, and we watched as the robber lifted his jacket and started to pull out his gun again, and then turned, ran around the corner, and jumped into the waiting "taxi." The whole time the getaway car and driver had been sitting just two blocks down the road from the police station in plain view. The victim ran down in time to get a description of the car, which was a fake taxi, then came running over to us and asked to borrow our phone to call 911. In a little while a police van pulled up, saw us outside, and stopped to talk to us. They then went and talked to the victim. Throughout the rest of the day we saw a lot of police vehicles cruising around, but I doubt that the robbers were caught. This was the first armed robbery that I have witnessed, and it was rather scary, especially since it happened in the middle of the afternoon in our "quiet" neighborhood just two blocks from the police station.

A police van sits right up the street from us where the robbery took place.

However, that is not all the excitement that we have had within the last 24 hours. Last night, two of our bottles of shampoo were stolen. Here is what happened...

In the middle of the night, someone climbs over our gate (I doubt that they climbed over the wall pictured below, which is our northern boundary). These gates are probably close to 10 feet tall, but that is no problem.



The robber opens our bathroom window (which we had left cracked open for ventilation) perhaps standing on the water faucet (since most Costa Ricans are short).

The robber reaches through the window and begins to take bottles of shampoo of the windowsill.

Ooops! The robber knocks one of the bottles of shampoo onto the shower floor. Although it didn't wake us up, we hope that it scared the tar out of him. The robber no doubt goes flying back over the fence, and we continue to sleep peacefully.

Missy gets up at around 4:30, sees the fallen and the missing bottles, and after crawling into bed wakes me to tell me about it.

Both of us wonder why in the world someone would go to all that trouble for a little shampoo, but we are able to go back to sleep.

We wake up to get ready for school, and I run outside to take pictures for an exciting blog post.

We discuss whether we want to: 1) just start locking that window at night, 2) fill some more shampoo bottles with vegetable oil and put them back on the sill, or 3) leave a shampoo bottle up there with a tract taped to it.

After thinking about our options throughout the day, we decide to go with option 1.

Well, that has been our excitement for today. If you ever get too bored, come down and visit us.