"Who Steals My Purse..."

"Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’Twas mine, ’tis his..."
-Othello

That's the way Shakespeare said it. Who steals my purse steals trash, but the bastard that robbed our house two nights ago got more than trash.

We're all still on edge a little after some thief came in an unlocked window downstairs while we were all sleeping upstairs. With two laptops and a couple of iPods under his arm, I'm sure he was thinking it was a good night.

So we are out a fair bit of coin to replace the stuff stolen, but what's far worse is the creepy feeling you get that some stranger (I hope it was a stranger) has been in your house with the intent of taking advantage of you. Who was it? How did they know we had anything worth taking? How did they know coming in that particular window was the shortest path to the high ticket, mobile items? Let the festival of paranoia begin!

It's not a tragedy of profound dimensions to lose some of your stuff, but you can discern the classic stages - there's denial ("Is this a joke? Did someone move the laptops into the other room?") and lots of anger ("%$@&! Bastards!") bargaining ("Well, at least they didn't take the TV, and they didn't break the window.") and depression ("Why is the world filled with sociopaths?") but I have not gotten to acceptance yet. I keep cycling back to anger.

Of course, some are quicker to get to acceptance than others. It was voiced yesterday that "it's sad that some people have so little that they have to steal from others," or some other admirably forgiving statement. But I doubt these thieves were starving - they didn't take any food - and I'd bet the stealing is more about feeding a habit than feeding a family. It's also unlikely that this thief is a Jean Valjean, who will go on to contribute much more to society than he takes away.

All the same, I would enjoy the opportunity to talk this over with the perpetrator, analyze the societal pressure that lead to crime, how the system keeps the underclass addicted and marginalized and so on. And during that conversation, I would offer to show him an extreme close up view of my Louisville Slugger that's been taken out of storage and posted close at hand now. Along those lines, consider this blog post a warning against any generally suspicious behavior on my block. Like I said, I keep cycling back to anger.