All that work for $0.50 in pennies

As some of you familiar with the Avenues may know, part of the "charm" of living in the Avenues comes with on-street parking. The advantage is that we can see our cars from our bedroom window. The disadvantage being that they are, well...on the street. Now, our neighborhood is a safe neighborhood. However, we live close enough to other neighborhoods not so nice (e.g. drug neighborhoods) that we seem to get uncharacteristic crime float through occasionally. Along with this, we sometimes hear strange noises randomly at night. Most of the time I jump up (with my cell phone in hand ready to call the police) to look out the window to make sure no one is going to decide to break into our house. Well, last night I slept like a baby. No random noises to disturb my dream-like slumber. However, when Doug got to his car this morning to go to work, he found out that someone had broken into it. Now, a word about his car. It's over 10 years old, the indoor dash lights don't work, the CD player doesn't work and the driver-side window doesn't roll down or up all the way. Not to mention the fact that it has become an extension of our "junk drawer". This may have been part of the allure to the thief (that and the lack of an alarm). There were a couple of nice glasses cases lying on the floor along with other misc items. However, after pillaging thoroughly through the car, the thief only discovered some old tapes, empty glasses cases, and about 50 cents in pennies in the ash tray. Apparently, the urge to not leave empty handed was strong enough for him to take his pile of pennies and go. A handful of pennies was "a steal" considering that on his way into the car, he seemed to have fixed our window! Excellent. Did I mention the curb-side car maintenance provided in the Avenues?