Life in the big city

I had planned to return to my long-neglected blog with a lighthearted post about my new striptease aerobics class (the best part so far has been the reaction I get when I tell former boyfriends about it). In fact, I planned to set aside some time this weekend to write, play Ms. Fix-it around the house, and check out Soup Sunday. I burned a good bit of midnight oil at work on Friday night; I had a project that I wanted to get done before Monday, and I didn't want to have to work on it over the weekend. Could have taken it home, but things were clicking along well at my desk and I just kept plugging away.

I wasn't altogether surprised that my car got broken into. In fact, I guess I expected it. Despite having been a victim a few times before, I haven't broken the bad habit of leaving stuff in my car. Especially stuff that I know I'm going to need to put back in my car in the near future. I guess I should look on the bright side: now there's less to take out.

As is usually my luck in victimhood, the thieves didn't get anything that will be of much use to them. In fact, my vehicles seem to attract dumb crooks. The first time my car got burglarized, my favorite backpack was taken. Since it was before the dawn of online banking, I had the remains of my monthly bill-paying (but no wallet and no checks) in the bag. The woman at the student loan company was quite amused when I called to get a new book of payment coupons. I told her to be sure to let me know if anyone actually mailed a payment in with one of the old ones.

Those first thieves of mine had apparently seen the episode of COPS, I think my friend said it was, where they talked about how you can start a car by jamming a screwdriver into the ignition and forcing it to turn. Obviously they didn't pay close enough attention, 'cause it didn't work for them. And I learned the peril of buying a new cheap imported car instead of a used one: spare parts are hard to come by in the first year or so. Mine had to come off an assembly line in Japan, or so the dealer said. But I think he was getting a kickback from the rental car place.

So I opted to lease American next time around. This time the thieves popped the lock out of the door and went straight (and unsuccessfully) for the standard issue factory radio, conveniently (for me) ignoring the $60 in cash I had stashed in the center console. A later go-round (when my car happened to be relatively empty) yielded the thief about $2 in change and my boyfriend's $9 watch from Wal-Mart. He left the $150 cowboy hat and a $1000 dent where his first attempt to throw a brick through the window went wide to the right.

Perhaps the most memorable episode was the one where I actually got some of my stuff back. Two of the city's finest showed up on my doorstep at an obscene hour of the morning, having found my address on an old parking ticket (of course I've paid it, Officer) that had been in my glove box. My dazed roommate let them in, and I stumbled into the living room in my underwear before she had a chance to warn me. Hard to say who was most embarrassed, 'cause I, unlike the cops, wasn't awake enough to care all that much. My things had been stuffed into my backpack (not my favorite one, which I've never been able to replace) and dumped in a parking lot.

That was also the first time I actually had any personal contact with my thief, or at least someone who knew him. After replacing my stolen cell phone, I got a call from a girl who sounded very indignant that I, a female, had answered my own phone. I asked her who had called her from that number, and she told me that Tony had called her the night before. I let her get good and jealous before I told her that her beloved Tony wasn't a playa, he was just a lousy thief.

Since most of my bad automotive luck has occurred in the parking lots of bars, for a while I thought that God was trying to tell me to quit drinking so much. So last night I skipped a planned trip to the bar and worked late instead. Wonder what God's trying to tell me now?