|
Be careful what you wish for... |
Monday, November 22, 1999 A Trade As most of you presumably remember, I was in a van crash three months ago. And in this crash, a number of material items were lost or broken beyond repair, including my Walkman and my Discman. This didn't particularly distress me; on the whole, I was just happy to be alive. But, alone out of all the non-organic items in the van, I really wanted two things recovered, both of which were apparently lost: my notepad and pen. The notepad contained just about everything I'd scribbled down all summer. The pen had quite a bit of sentimental value, but was a distant second in priority. Down the line, I wrote a poem about my experience, in which I mentioned the bit about my notepad and pen being lost. And one of my classmates thought I was putting a disproportionate emphasis on them; after all, it's not as if I'd lost my wallet or something really important. Being a writer, I couldn't quite say I saw matters that way. As I told my sister on the phone after that class, I would have gladly given up my wallet to get the notepad back. Somebody Up There was clearly paying attention.
This past Friday, I got a call from my younger sister. It seems she was visiting her older sister for the weekend, so she pulled out her duffle bag (unused since the crash) to use for the trip. And, lo and behold, there inside it was my notepad, intact! So she called me, and there was much joy, and I'll be picking it up on Thursday. But, hey, a deal is a deal. So, less than two hours ago, I got mugged.
I was walking home from college, feeling pretty exhausted, because I'd only gotten two hours of sleep the night before, and that was after attending a wedding, where I was fairly active. And I'm about two-thirds of the way home when this guy comes up from behind me, and asks me what time it is. I pull out my watch and tell him it's ten o'clock. (It was actually about fifteen seconds shy of the hour, but my watch isn't calibrated that exactly anyway.) He thanks me and mumbles something about being late, and walks on, now about two paces ahead of me. The next thing I know, I hear someone behind me. A moment after that, I'm shoved from behind (in my knapsack), and hit on the left side of my head. A moment after that, I'm on the ground, and the second guy -- who I can't really see, aside from his hand -- asks for my money. Without a moment's hesitation, I pull my wallet out of my jeans pocket and hand it over. "That's it? You're sure?" he asks. "I'm a college student; I'm broke. Trust me, that's it," I reply. They run off in the direction I was coming from, and may or may not have been picked up by a getaway car; I saw or heard one zoom by in their direction, but I wasn't looking back. I just got up and continued plodding home, arriving there about five minutes later.
From there, I immediately called my father, told him I was fine, and told him to cancel the credit card I'd had in my wallet. Then I called the cops, who said they'd be by to take my report shortly, then called the landlady, so she wouldn't panic when the cops came. Then my sister called, but I got off the line quickly, 'cause I wanted to keep it clear in case the police needed to call. And then the police came by, and I told them what happened, and told them that I have no idea of what the people involved looked like, outside of their gender and ethnicity. And twenty minutes had gone by since the incident, so there was little hope that they could do anything. So they told me to call the precinct in the morning to get my complaint number, and that's probably going to be the end of that.
To the best of my recollection, the wallet contained:
For my part, I'm going to have to get another couple of ID cards, but this is more of an inconvenience than anything else. I apparently scraped my elbow in the fall to the ground, and I can tell that my head was hit, but I'm basically okay. So if this was a trade, I'd still have to say it was well worth it. And if not, well, if I was gonna be mugged, this was probably the best possible scenario.
I do suppose I'm going to be taking a different route home from now on, though, using a more densely populated street. Which'll add four blocks to my walk, but I guess it's worth the tradeoff. Anyway, I'd like to get some sleep. Oh, and I'm not sure about tomorrow, as I have a paper due on Wednesday, and I still don't have a clue of what I'm writing about. So we'll see. But on the bright side, I'll have Thanksgiving off...
|
Contact Back Forth Archives Index |