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juushikaOn my way down to Corvallis on the 13th (a week ago), I left my shoulder bag (read: purse) on the train at my stop in Albany. By the time we got it back after the next stop, which is the end of the line in Eugene, someone had stolen my Nintendo DSiXL (and copy of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box), Beats headphones, and Devon's Zune.
In my head I'm writing a letter to that someone, a letter which I may do well to write for real, and print, and put in the mail with no address except That Bastard Who Stole My Shit. I don't want to write an open letter. I've gone through the things that I think everyone goes through when their belongings are stolen: incomprehension, guilt, anger, and that lingering feeling of violation. I'm actually sort of getting over it, which surprises me—getting over emotional things is not my strong point. But there's still something there, something personal and even intimate. My names on the save files. The scratches I left on my DS that time I saw a bug on the top screen and instinctively threw it at a wall. The part of my headphones that I'd just noticed needed servicing. The story of whose Zune that is, and why I have it, and who they really stole it from. I treasure my possessions. Because I have no independent income, most everything I own is something I wanted badly which someone else gave to me; it is rare, precious, and has the emotional connotations of a gift. I love them all. They all have stories.
But I understand stealing perfectly well. I'm the type of person that would have to think twice before returning money found on the floor, because it's only wrong if you get caught: material goods are delicious; morals are ambiguous. I've been known to go through the bags and wallets of friends when they're not looking. I violate privacy all the time, even if my violations are harmless.
And it's such an anonymous act to take something from an abandoned bag.
I get it.
And yet it's so intimate, to know that someone I have fantasized about punching in the face opened my bag, sorted the expensive goods from the $15 cell phone, remembered to grab all the chargers that mattered, took my petty cash but didn't touch my plastic, and left the remnant—and quite right—in the trash where it wouldn't be found until they were pretty much untraceable. They touched me, and yet we are strangers, and the ambiguity makes me want to bridge the gap: Dear stranger, this is who I am and this is the meaning of what you stole, and also—I mean, just while we're on the subject—fuck you.
In a strange way, I find our non-relationship fascinating.
In my head I'm writing a letter to that someone, a letter which I may do well to write for real, and print, and put in the mail with no address except That Bastard Who Stole My Shit. I don't want to write an open letter. I've gone through the things that I think everyone goes through when their belongings are stolen: incomprehension, guilt, anger, and that lingering feeling of violation. I'm actually sort of getting over it, which surprises me—getting over emotional things is not my strong point. But there's still something there, something personal and even intimate. My names on the save files. The scratches I left on my DS that time I saw a bug on the top screen and instinctively threw it at a wall. The part of my headphones that I'd just noticed needed servicing. The story of whose Zune that is, and why I have it, and who they really stole it from. I treasure my possessions. Because I have no independent income, most everything I own is something I wanted badly which someone else gave to me; it is rare, precious, and has the emotional connotations of a gift. I love them all. They all have stories.
But I understand stealing perfectly well. I'm the type of person that would have to think twice before returning money found on the floor, because it's only wrong if you get caught: material goods are delicious; morals are ambiguous. I've been known to go through the bags and wallets of friends when they're not looking. I violate privacy all the time, even if my violations are harmless.
And it's such an anonymous act to take something from an abandoned bag.
I get it.
And yet it's so intimate, to know that someone I have fantasized about punching in the face opened my bag, sorted the expensive goods from the $15 cell phone, remembered to grab all the chargers that mattered, took my petty cash but didn't touch my plastic, and left the remnant—and quite right—in the trash where it wouldn't be found until they were pretty much untraceable. They touched me, and yet we are strangers, and the ambiguity makes me want to bridge the gap: Dear stranger, this is who I am and this is the meaning of what you stole, and also—I mean, just while we're on the subject—fuck you.
In a strange way, I find our non-relationship fascinating.
