And that’s how my day started…what kind of day have you had?

Let me fill you in on the details…

I went to sleep on the sofa last night watching Prison Break. (What happened at the road block in Albuquerque?)

Anyway, I woke up at 4:20 a.m. today, and I noticed that I hadn’t turned off the Christmas lights on the front porch, so I opened the front door and turned off the lights. As I did, I noticed there was some guy standing in the street down at the end of our driveway. I thought it was a bit weird that somebody would be on the street at that time, but I just chalked it up to the fact that he probably had a good reason to be out and about.

I stood there and watched as he slung some sort of bag over his shoulder, got on an old bike, and pedaled noisily, but nonchalantly off down the street. I went back into the house, and since it was time to get up anyway, I went ahead and got started on my day.

The lovely and gracious “Mrs. Just Charlie” got up, got ready, and headed off to work. I didn’t even mention the guy to her, figuring it was no big deal.

An hour or so later, I started to head out for the YMCA, and when I got into my truck, I noticed the laptop bag that had been in the passenger floorboard was no longer in the passenger floorboard.

And that’s when it hit me: More than likely, it was my laptop bag the guy on the squeaky old bike had slung over his shoulder as he rode off down my street!

So, I called Cherokee County’s finest, and the officer showed up, wrote out a report, and all that jazz. (Right in the middle of writing the report, he got a call about somebody’s burglar alarm going off in our neighborhood.)

Apart from that whole “feeling violated on my own property” thing, “Mr. Squeaky Bicycle Guy” got the raw end of the deal. As I told somebody later, that computer is about two or three notches below “Piece of Crap” on the scale of notebook computers. But still, it’s a sickening and deflating feeling to start your day off with a robbery.

So that was my early morning. Hope your day has been better than that!