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The morning got off to quite a start, the rare energy to get the gasoline I needed for my incredibly demanding car unexpectedly manifesting itself like a leprechaun might to a drunk Irish sailor. The fear of one of life’s most humiliating circumstances; sitting deflated along a busy rush hour highway praying someone might take mercy on your idiocy, for running out of gas is the folly of adolescents.
Really a gorgeous day by most measures; the crowds waiting at the Division Street bus stop have finally softened their features and found a calm about their five minute wait for the next bus. A month ago the anger was poignant, the devil in us all had had quite enough of the piercing winds and the lingering weirdos and the fact that no matter what, no matter how early you could get yourself bundled and get yourself outside and get yourself miserably to the bus stop there was someone who seemed to live there who had the right to actually sit on one of the three bus stop seats and get on the bus before you.
This morning I watched her lean up against the bus sign pole, reading a chick lit novel with brown leather boots to her calf, a business casual skirt and a blouse, her body language suggesting she would assess the commotion when the bus arrived, happy to wait for a later one. Happy to stand there all day, really.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the attitudinal universe, some stupid neanderthal spent this morning executing a plan to rob my parents.
His (or her) notion at the sign of this long-awaited sunshine was to preface his breakfast with a five finger discount, leaving my mother in tears and her children hungry for revenge.
Who are these people, who live in whitebread American suburbs and scout unsuspecting hard-working families’ homes for credit cards and cash? What circumstance causes the darkness to bubble up from within, necessitating a violation intimate enough to change an aging couple’s behavior forever, but so infantile that even a police officer probably won’t have time to care.
Where is your self-worth?
Ours is a typical neighborhood, with one-acre lots, unimpressive architecture, and unexciting landscape. There is no cover, and no incentive to wander between homes looking for loot. Two or three bedrooms, an attached garage, and every once in while a pool or a trampoline; we have neither. The biggest take with any effort would probably be a mini-van…there’s plenty of those.
This morning someone woke up and couldn’t remember what humanity meant, and in the world we Chicagoans live in that’s a hard thing to forget in early May. That person entered our kitchen and took some cash and some gift cards; my mother collects Lettuce Entertain You gift cards in a way that might surprise you. She’s too nice of a woman to call LYE and ask that they be replaced; “not in this economy“.
I honestly hope it was worth it.
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