Maybe it's because I'm a month or so from turning 40, or maybe it's because I'm reading a wonderful novel-in-stories, Olive Kitteredge by Elizabeth Strout and it's making me feel a little too in touch with the fact that we all die someday so we'd better appreciate everything, or maybe I just need to meet more people who haven't heard all my stories, but I find myself looking back a lot lately. Since I've already written about my life of crime, now here's the other side—my life as a victim, I suppose.
• Maybe 10 years ago my apartment was broken into. It was July 4, and I had gone to watch the fireworks. The burglars broke a pane in my kitchen window, which was right next to the building's stairwell, and unlocked it. The outside of the window was filthy, and their handprints were everywhere, especially on my bed. I was surprised that they looked under the mattress, but the cops said that a lot of people really do hide their valuables there (and also in sock and underwear drawers). They took my laptop, a lot of CDs, and that's about it. (Score one for the minimalist! And for the anal-retentive who kept a list of every CD he owned, forcing the insurance company to reimburse him!) They walked right by the envelope holding quite a bit of cash—a wedding gift I had yet to give. The cops were nice, guessing that it was probably a deliveryman who had cased the place at some point. After one cop left, the other was standing in my living room when he noticed the wind-up toy shaped like a penis that was sitting on my coffee table. (It was a gift! And it was a toy, not a "toy"!) He picked it up, wound it, and as it hopped along, he said, "This is yours?"
• At the gym a few years ago, I returned to the locker room to find a man standing in front of my open locker, holding up my jeans. "Those are my jeans," I said, confused. He handed them to me, said, "I'm sorry, my mistake," and left. By the time I made sure my wallet and keys were still there, he was long gone. The guy at the hardware store said that those round-ish dial-combination locks are easy as pie to open.
• When I'm showering at the gym, I always lock my dirty gym clothes inside my locker, unless the locker room is really crowded, in which case I might roll them up and leave them under a bench like other people do. Last time I did that I'm pretty sure someone stole my underwear.
• Soon after I moved to New York I was supposed to go watch a Duke basketball game at Madison Square Garden, and for some reason I had to sell an extra ticket. Some guy said he was interested, then he took the ticket from me and from that point on he acted like it was his. I was a rube, but I'd rather be a rube than a crook.
• When I was in college but spending a semester in New York, I was riding the subway when I sensed that a group of guys were focusing on me. I was standing against the subway doors, and when we approached the Times Square station, the guys started coming toward me. I put my hand on top of my wallet, but I should have put my hand inside my pocket, because as they rushed at me one guy lifted up my arm and another took my wallet. As they scattered around the platform, I was left yelling, "Which one of you assholes took my wallet?"
• I was bit once. I don't want to talk about it.
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