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Heardjya Got Robbed, or “So That Happened”

posted by Carl Newman at 9:19 pm.

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Well, reader. We got robbed. Tuesday morning, my roommate, Steve Plock, woke up at five in the morning to what he first (it was 5 AM, mind you) thought was Randy. And then Steve, sans contacts or glasses and groggy as hell thought, “No, wait. Randy isn’t black.”

Steve responded in the absolute smartest way possible, he rolled around in bed but didn’t get up, the intruder left the house, the three of us got up and called the Champaign police (why bother, right?).

The intruder, or “Thiefy,” as I call him, had entered in through a downstairs window while the three of us were in the house asleep, had walked past my ipod, laptop, cd player, dvd player, PS2, Xbox, ipod dock, a checkbook, sleeping bag (maybe not that valuable, but could’ve been useful to this guy); and he went upstairs into Steve’s room. Rather than just taking Steve’s wallet from his desk, he stood there and pulled out 18 dollars in cash, leaving behind all the plastic, steve’s laptop, ipod, xbox 360, etc. And then he left out the front door.

Obviously, it could’ve been a lot worse, the screen on the back window was cut, not ripped out.

Plus, given the circumstances, it couldn’t have gone much better for us. If you’re going to have a guy break into your house while you’re home, it can’t go much better than having a measly 18 dollars stolen. Unless Steve had only had 17 dollars in his wallet. But we’re not that greedy.

We were pretty shook up for a little while, and then by seven o’clock I started referring to Thiefy as “Reverse Santa Claus.”

I was a little upset for about six hours. There was someone in my home. It was a violation of our home, and I had a hard time with that. There’s something about the experience that really throws your mind off balance.

But then I thought, “So that happened.” Which is a great line from a David Mamet movie that I love. Alec “The Talented Baldwin” Baldwin says it right after he gets into a car accident. It’s sort of in the vein of “that which doesn’t kill me…” but less dark. I say it to myself almost daily over some inconvenience or other. This is just a little more unsettling.

But you’ve got two choices when you get robbed: Lose sleep over it, or don’t.

That first reaction is:

“In my HOME! In my bedroom, where my wife sleeps! Where my children come and play with their toys.”

(Side note, in the above allusion Steve is my wife. If only).

And human beings do so desperately need to be in control of their lives, and that’s the real reason that we were upset. Obviously it wasn’t the 18 dollars that bothered us. It was the petty desire to own our home and feel like it belongs to us and we don’t like anything that crosses our wires. And it might feel real nice for a minute or two to buy a can of mace and floodlights and put one of my knives between my mattress and the wall.

I chose against it. So Steve and I hung up a sign on our back (now, screenless) window that reads: “Please stop robbing us. Thank You.” Actually, I made the sign. Steve just added a frowny face to it.

This morning I requested Steve play “2+2=5″ off Hail to the Thief. Get it? He dedicated it to Thiefy.

So I’m locking the windows at night. And we’re getting a new screen.

So that happened.

Carl Newman: appreciates when you don't feel like commenting, but still want to tell him what an asshole he is at warriorpoetresponds@gmail.com