Window Grills

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Iron grills on windows are not my favorite thing in the world because they will always be associated with something ugly.

When I was away at college, our house was broken into. The thief/thieves entered by removing the jalousies of our window, one by one - that enabled a child I'm guessing into the house who went on to open the front door for the thief/thieves.

Thankfully, no one was hurt. In the house sleeping were my mom, my cousin, and 3 nieces. All women. My dad was already gone by then.

Likewise, thankfully, nothing significant was taken. Our tv set was not taken. My mother's jewelry - or whatever little collection she had - was still in her aparador (wardrobe).

My mother did not keep cash in the house. What she did in those days was have enough spending cash in the house to last a whole month. My mother was/is a genius in budgeting money. The burglars came in at end of the month and so you could just imagine that there simply was no cash lying around the house.

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Instead the thief/thieves ran away with my niece's precious possessions - she is still bitter about the loss - her gold medals from various academic contests she joined over the years. Not to toot my own family's horn, but that niece was really brainy and brazen when it comes to competition - she always get away with first place or gold medal.

In one night, she lost all her gold medals. They may have been gold plated medals but to her they were more precious than 14K gold. Up now we still talk about how dense these burglars were. Did they think those medals were real gold? What good would these medals serve them? They were worth nothing anywhere except to the owner.

The people in the house did not know they were robbed. They were all asleep. One thing was amiss though. My mother's pee pot (arinola) was moved from inside the downstairs bedroom where she slept with the youngest niece to the outside of the room. [We have one bathroom in the first floor. My mother always makes use of a pee pot, whether she slept upstairs or downstairs. She hated the idea of going a few yards in the middle of the night to the bathroon. So I grew up using a pee pot in the middle of the night.]

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Anyway, after that night, my mother immediately pulled money from her emergency fund and have iron grills installed in all our windows. I hated the idea when I came home from college. But having the grills gave my mother a little peace of mind.

About the burglar/s? Loose tongues told us that it was a neighbor who was high on drugs and thought that my mother had money scattered everywhere in the house. His brains were definitely fried if he thought of that possibility.

Comments

  1. Glad nothing happened that day. With burglars you never know...
    Those iron grills are dangerous in case of fire... :-(

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  2. an architect friend once told me that iron grills on windows and doors make houses ugly. but sometimes it's a necessity.

    it's a good thing that your mom and relatives were not awaken by the burglar(s). let them take what they want as long as everybody's unharmed. my friend would say, get a gun!:p

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  3. good thing they didn't harm your mom. too bad nga for your niece, sarap pa naman sa feeling yung makikita mu yung mga medals mu noon, reminders of the glorious days, achievements at mga pinaghirapan. yung window grills, may point si Sidney, dangerous in case of fires pero me mga grills din ata na pede lagyan ng lock para mabuksan in case of emergency. me mga artistic na rin na desenyo now pero like you, d rin ako ng fan ng mga iron grills, masarap pa rin yung malayang nabubuksan ang bintana at nalalangahap yung sariwang hangin (sa probinsya kung saan presko ang hangin! hehe).

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  4. The important thing was nobody got hurt. This is a good reason to keep a dog in the house. Did anybody in the household figure out why the arinola was moved?

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  5. i dunno, i like having grills on my windows. you know how us filipinos are superstitious, i feel keeps the aswangs from coming in our house. lolz.

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  6. i agree with the window grills idea. our house windows in the philippines have them too.

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  7. i'm glad that noone was hurt after that incident, unfortunately, it still happens here, the akyat bahay thing, but burglars, thieves, whatever you call them, seem to have more guts nowadays, sometimes, you wonder where's peace and order?!
    so even if it grills make your house ugly,
    i think safety is more impt.

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  8. I really enjoy how you tell your story. Thanks for stopping by now and then to my blog...I'll be back to yours more regularly.

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  9. Organized content is the best way to display or post an article, thank you for making it easy to digest your post.



    King Iron Works

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