Apartment broken into!!! Nothing stolen???

A little background: I lived in North Dakota until I met my wife 4 years ago (Match.com). She lived in South Dakota. So, I packed up all my belongings, and headed south.

All my scrap metal clients were still in ND. So I rented a flea-bag apartment in North Dakota where I can stay while I am cleaning up my clients. I do this ND-SD thing about 1 week in ND, 2 weeks in SD all summer long. Winter it slows down to nothing.

Well, got a call yesterday, gotta make a run from home (SD) to client (ND). So leave this morning to head north. Everything good.

Get to apartment in ND. Push on door, and it just swings open. Locked, but has been jimmied with a crow bar. Door jam all f'ed up, door frame bent. Somebody's been in here! Check closets, shower, double check closets...nobody here. Look around, nothing missing. Laptop (that I am typing this on as we speak) still here, can of coins, ice fishing stuff, beer in fridge, nothing gone. WTF.

Call landlord. He says call cops. So I call cops. Cop comes over, looks at door, looks at door jam. We BS for a while. After kinda getting to know the cop, he tells me there are a lot of transients coming here because they hear there are all kinds of high paying jobs in North Dakota with the oil boom and such. Well hello, I'm 200 miles from any oil well, or oil producing county. Apparently they just hear North Dakota and think it's easy money wherever you decide to plop down. BS with cop some more, he tells me he's been over here before "visiting" with my neighbor. This is not your standard apartment. Just an old house renovated into a 4-plex. Apparently neighbor kid is a nasty drunk. I've said hi to him a few times and how's it going...nothing more. Seemed like an ok kid to me. OK, BS more with cop. He says this kid (23-26 yearold) will break in to get booze. I tell cop I have 30 pack of Busch Lite in fridge and it's still there. Cop says; " This kid ain't interested in beer. Doesn't do it for him. He needs a 1/2 gallon of whiskey at a shot.". I'm like HUH?

So cop says bye, bye and I go about my business and he goes about his. I walk outside to plug my pickup in because it won't start without being plugged in at these cold temps. There is punk kid standing outside smoking a cig. What to do? I have my pistol, which I carry legally at all times. Do I show him the bulge in my pants pocket? HAHA, or just walk away like nothing happened? Walk back to door, Kid asks me: "Hey man, what were the cops doing here?" I start to quiz him: Did you see anything? Hear anything? Anyone suspicious around here? Of course all his answers were "No, I just come out here to smoke." Then punk asks me "Was anything stolen?" I say "no", and continue on with my questioning. After what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds, he said something very telling. "Glad nothing was stolen."



Now, when I told this whole story to the cop, to my wife, and to my sister, they all asked "are you sure nothing is missing?" Couldn't believe nothing was gone. When I told this punk kid that, he wasn't surprised nothing was stolen.

Full disclaimer: when I was young I did some very foolish things while under the influence of whatever. So I kind of have an understanding if this kid was just looking for some hard liquor. Also, he may have stolen my laptop and whatever else and returned it later...who knows. I haven't been here since Nov. 25th.

Side note: Cop forgot his gloves here. I called non-emergency number, and he came back by and was very happy with my honesty. Told him to keep his **** eyes on this place lol.

Thanks for reading my rant. No point to it really. Someone is going to say "Punch him in the face", I know that.

What would you do besides punching him in the face?