Chicagoan indignant that nothing was stolen from car

Planet temporarily fixes the broken window with a piece of cardboard.

The shock of finding his car broken into quickly turned to disappointment as Rogers Park South resident Andy Planet discovered that the thieves had, in fact, taken nothing.

"The trunk was wide open and the front seat was littered with all my belongings," the puzzled Planet said after his neighbors alerted him Sunday afternoon to the broken side window on his Toyota Corolla S, parked in his condo building's lot. "If they went through all the trouble of going through everything, why didn't they take any of it?"

His surprise continued when he phoned police and was informed that he could fill out a report over the phone. "I was careful not to touch my car because I thought they'd come to dust for prints or something," Planet said. "But the cop said there wouldn't be much they could do about it."

When Planet informed the officer that nothing had been taken, he was told that he would be filling out a damage-to-vehicle report, not a theft report. "How disappointing," Planet thought at the time. "The cop on the phone said I must have nothing of value, but that's bullshit," he later told Daley Show reporters, displaying a box full of CDs, loose change, maps, and other junk.

"I know they wouldn't be able to get much money for these CDs," Planet acknowledged, "but they could have been introduced to some cool new bands, like Ladytron and The National. Plus, I had a David Sedaris on CD collection in there. It's priceless, if you ask me."

Planet also had an official Ultimate Frisbee disc (UPA approved, 175 grams) in the trunk, as well as a baseball glove and ball, which he admitted he hadn't used all summer. "What I don't get is that these guys left the trunk wide open, and no one else walked past and grabbed that stuff," Planet said.

After some thought, Planet decided to call his insurance company, thinking that he might not have to pay the deductible on a broken window. He was wrong, and anticipates using his credit card for the $250 charge later today.

Speaking to the Geico representative on the phone, Planet realized he didn't know what the broken window was called. "It's the little triangle window--not the main one--in the back, on the passenger side," he told her. She informed him that it's called a vent window, which further puzzled Planet, since the little window does not open so it doesn't vent anything, he said.

As he waited for the window repair company to show up Monday (sometime between 1 and 5 p.m.), Planet hoped it wouldn't rain and wondered what the thieves might have been searching for. "Drugs maybe," he said, "or weapons. I don't know. Maybe they thought I kept a spare key in there somewhere, so they could steal the car. It is a pretty damn cool car." He said that he's not quite sure where he does keep his spare key, but is glad that it's not in the glove box. "They went through everything in there and absolutely nothing is missing," he said.

Planet also wondered if the broken window might have something to do with a recent post on his blog, Forbidden Chicago, which included a picture of a broken car window. "Maybe they read that post and got pissed that I took a picture of their car," he hypothesized before admitting that no one really reads his blog.

Belongings scattered everywhere but "absolutely nothing" missing