Scofflaws Can Be Such Killjoys

Scofflaws.

Scoff. Laws.

Whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

Scofflaws, scofflaws...

If you're a scofflaw in Philadelphia, watch your ass, because court officers may just be knocking on your door, anxious to put their feet all the way up that ass of yours until they're toe-tickling your tonsils.

On Sunday night, court officers hit the bricks and busted 32 minor league shitheads who, together, owe the city approximately $120,000 for prior traffic violations. I watched the news on Monday morning and was slightly amused to see these num-nums being loaded into paddy wagons (yes, we still have those in Philly-- we call them Emergency Patrol Wagons, or "E.P.W.'s" for short) with their hands cuffed behind their backs and denim jackets draped over their heads, as if they were hardened criminals or something.

This presentation undoubtedly gave their criminal image a great boost. Likewise, the image of court officers also got kicked up a notch as these over-rated bailiffs and prisoner transport jockeys got to don heavy ballistic vests and wear their badges on chains around their necks, looking like U.S. Marshals or Ice-T from "Law & Order," bustin' down doors and not takin' no shit.

(Sidebar: When having casual conversations on the set, do you think, like, Richard Belzer calls Ice-T "Ice-T" or do you think he calls him "Tracy," his real name? Maybe he calls him "Barbara.")

Anyway, as I was watching these petty criminals being cuffed and stuffed into the E.P.W., my wife and I got into a brief discussion over the term "scofflaw," which is what these dunderheads essentially are, and it was how they were referred to by the local television newsheroes that Philadelphians incongruously worship.

"Scofflaw," my wife said, "that's such a funny word."

"Mm," was my intellectual contribution, before adding, "it's probably from old English."

"Right," she, the linguist, agreed, "like 'buzzkill' and 'killjoy'. We don't have that many more words in American English today."

The image on the television news program changed to that of a church. The reporter droned on about some story that might have been interesting to a Christian or something.

"Oh, you mean like 'touchboy' or 'fondlechild'?" I offered.

"Exactly," my wife said, "we just don't have words like that."

But, how wonderful would it be if we did? You could refer to your job, or your boss, as a "sucklife," your car as a "guzzlegas," and your blog as "masturbationclean."

The more I thought about the term "scofflaw" the more I started to like it. "I am one who scoffs at laws." I wonder how many of the 32 people arrested know what "scoffing" is. Probably not many of them. Maybe that's an ignorant or racist thing to say, and maybe you want to complain about that. Well, go ahead. I will scoff at your complaints. I will not pass them onto my superiors. In fact, I have no superiors. I scoffed at them, and they ran away from me, crying. Crybabies.

(Babycriers?)

Thinking about scofflaws, and the word scoffing in general, I think we need to move more in the direction of scoffing and less in the direction of snark. I think there is far too much snark in this society and far too little scoffing. So, let's get out there and scoff at some shit.

YEAH!

Oh, and, by the way: while doing research for this post (yes, I do research for these things. Isn't that painful?) I came across a quote that Richard Belzer offered at the 2002 Roast of Chevy Chase: "The only time Chevy Chase has a funny bone in him is when I fuck him up the ass."

Scoff at that, if you can.

The Penalty Box

Changing my trousers is a bit of a pain. This, of course, comes from a man who, only yesterday, on this very blog, complained about the drudgery involved in making fucking sandwiches.

Changing my mind is even more of an ordeal.

A long time ago, I was an ardent proponent of capital punishment. It seemed logical to me: take a life, lose yours. Pretty simple.

Well, life just isn't so, and the only thing more complicated than life is death.

It took me a long time to come around, but I eventually did. Well, sort of. You certainly won't see me taking to the streets with a poster of some murderer's face yelling for him/her to be freed, brick by brick. And you won't see me calling for the abolition of the death penalty either.

Maybe I should be, if it's really something I don't believe in anymore, but I guess I'm just too fat and lazy.

Well, I'm lazy.

See, I say that I've come around "sort of" because I believe that, while the death penalty is on the books, it ought to be used. I do not believe in convicted murderers languishing on death row for twenty-five years (or more) while they literally shit out appeals. As far as post-conviction relief appeal hearings, I'm a fan of the "One and Done" philosophy. Oh, can't prove your innocence after one goodhearted appeal?

Sorry. Thanks for playing.

Of course, I won't be shaking my head in despair when the death penalty, imperfect and blemished as it is, finally gets put to death itself once and for all in this country. That will be okay with me. The idea of your average, run-of-the-mill shitfuck wasting away in a prison cell for the remainder of his or her natural life is just fine. Having been inside prisons as an EMT, I can state that the idea of being in inmate in a prison for the rest of my life would make me wish for capital punishment to come quickly to me. Yeah, sometimes I think an early termination of life is too good for them.

And then the news comes on, and I can feel my mind going to the other side...

The piece of shit who put a bullet into Congresswoman Gifford's head, who slaughtered and wounded so many on that arid Tuscon day-- the man who turned a supermarket parking lot into a bloodbath. The motherfucker whose name I can't even bear to write out.

The piece of shit who ended the promising life of Lakewood, New Jersey Police Officer Christopher Matlosz. Matlosz pulled his cruiser up next to this bastard and, as they talked, the suspect pulled out a handgun, stepped back, and fired into Matlosz three times. This brave officer, dead at 27, was buried on Thursday. And all his fiancee got was his hat.

And, closer to my home, we've got the piece of shit abortion doctor. I want to throw up every time I think about him, about his filthy exam room, about the fifteen-year-old he had working for him, administering narcotics and anesthetics, about how he cut the spinal cords of viable, alive babies with a pair of scissors after they were delivered. About how he killed a mother, a poor woman, desperate for even the help of a charlatan, how he killed her through his negligence, his greed, and his ineptitude. Murderer. Ungodly, horrible, corrupt murderer.

I don't shock easily, friends, but this has been a rough couple weeks.

Why shouldn't we, as a society, kill this man? Why shouldn't we kill any of the aforementioned sonsofbitches? What are we proving by a stance of supposed morality? That we are better than them because we will gallantly spare their lives? Because we do not kill assassains or cop-killers or abortion butchers?

Well, go, us.

Where is the higher ground when we are confronted with such atrocities? And, even if we should find it, why bother to climb to its peak? Why? Who benefits from sparing such lives?

And, of course, I suppose I have to just ask myself, as I struggle with my own petty, internal grief, who benefits from taking theirs?

MOVE

Usually, anniversaries are happy occasions.

This one, well, isn't.

It's the 25th anniversary of MOVE today, and, if you don't know what that means, well, you're in for a real treat. I don't think the Philadelphia Tourism Board will be sending me any thank-you letters for this one.

(Though, really, Philly is more fun when you sleep over-- and we have a spare bedroom and an air-mattress!)

All major cities, I feel, have some sort of negative past association. New York City, of course, will forever be dismally associated with 9/11. Dallas will always be known as the city where we lost our coolest, (pre-Obama) president. And lots of people can't spell Cheyenne right, which is annoying.

And Philadelphia? Well, we're just the only city in the United States of America ever to drop a bomb on its own people.

On May 13th, 1985, after a stand-off between the Philadelphia Police Department and members of MOVE, often described as a "radical, back-to-nature cult," after a fire-fight that lasted hours and during which MOVE members and Philadelphia police officers exchanged thousands of rounds of ammunition, the decision was made to fly a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter over the scene, and drop a 4-pound bomb on top of the West Philadelphia rowhouse in which MOVE members had barricaded themselves.

6221 Osage Avenue. Gone. Burned to the ground. Obliterated. Oh, along with 61 other homes.

6 adults were killed, including MOVE founder, John Africa. 5 children perished. One adult and one child made it out alive.

And the City of Philadelphia received a black eye that calls out to the world still today, as a reminder of its stupidity, its brutality, it's recklessness, and its thorough dishonor.

Of course, to understand how things came to this, it's necessary to step back into even further history. Before MOVE inhabited its doomed dwelling at 6221 Osage Avenue, they lived in another West Philadelphia home in the Powelton Village section of the city. Because they eschewed everything that had to do with government, science, and medicine, their lifestyle was not exactly conducive to city living.

Their children ran around naked and defecated wherever they could. Dozens of stray dogs lived in the MOVE compound and did likewise with their bowel movements, and the dogs feasted on raw meat supplied by MOVE members. Trash was not collected and was piled high. Because MOVE did not believe in harming any of nature's creatures, rats and cockroaches flourished and began to infest the neighbors homes. Neighbors got pissed, and this drew the attention of the Philadelphia Police Department, who staged what was essentially a one-year standoff, with a constant police presence around the compound.

MOVE, not to be outdone, set up public address systems and unleashed profanity-laced tirades directed at city government, the neighbors, and, of course, the police. Death-threats were commonplace. MOVE members, well armed, barricaded the front of the house with wooden plank structures. Finally, warrants were issued for violations against city ordinances and a court order to vacate the residence was issued. This was all announced by the police, and MOVE ignored the order, refusing to leave. A bulldozer was brought in to clear the wooden structure in front of the house and police moved into position to take the house when MOVE opened fire.

"Oh my God, they shot a cop!" a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter covering the scene screamed into the phone to her editor. When the shooting stopped, Philadelphia Police Officer James Ramp, 52, a survivor of World War II and the Korean War, lay dead. Seven other police officers, four firefighters, and three bystanders were shot down in the street. Three MOVE members were also shot, and nine MOVE members were arrested. All were charged with 3rd degree murder in Ramp's death. One member died in prison, and now, the parole hearings for the MOVE 8 occur yearly.

In 1981, MOVE moved to 6221 Osage Avenue. After months and months of complaints by their new neighbors about the 24-hour loudspeaker preaches that included "FUCK THE MAYOR!" and "FUCK THE POLICE," and more feces and more stray animals, and more disease-spreading bacteria and filth, the police came again.

As move survivor Ramona Africa defiantly said in a recent interview, "They came to our house with guns strapped on ready to do murder."

Whether the Philadelphia Police Department came do do "murder" is a matter for debate-- but one thing is for sure: this time, they came ready for what MOVE promised: war.

"We will kill any cop who sets foot on our property!" they shouted through the loudspeakers, also stating that the police on the scene should tell their wives goodbye and make sure their insurance policies were paid up, "cuz you ain't goin' home."

With memories of 1978 and James Ramp coughing up blood in their arms, they had every reason to believe MOVE.

The Philadelphia Fire Department used two high-powered water cannons to try to dislodge a wooden and steel structure on the roof of 6221 Osage, which police feared might be a bunker containing MOVE members with guns who could pick off police from above. They poured a deluge of water on thes structure for over an hour, but could not successfully dislodge it. On the ground, while tear-gas was being lobbed into the house, members of the Philadelphia Police Department Stakeout squad entered the rowhome directly next to MOVE's house and attempted to blow a hole in the wall using explosives so that they could insert a pepper fogger (a device to immobilize MOVE members and make for a safe tactical entry into the house) but they could not successfully blast through the wall. And then the shooting started.

To avoid being shot to death, three Philadelphia police officers hid in a small, cramped closet together next door to the MOVE home, barely with room to breathe. Meanwhile, in the MOVE home, members were soaking blankets and hiding under them, to keep from being affected by the tear gas.

And that's when the decision was made to drop the bomb.

The Police Commissioner said that the Fire Commissioner told him his men would be able to control the ensuing blaze. The Fire Commissioner said that he claimed there was no way of knowing. The City Manager said. The Mayor said. They all said. And, those who are still living, say on.

Say on.

Whatever you say, it doesn't change the fact that eleven lives were lost in one of the most horrific, barbaric events ever to occur in this or any supposedly civilized society. The Philadelphia Police Department's relations with the black community were irrevocably damaged, in spite of the fact that Philadelphia Police Officer James Berghaier risked his own death to go out, completely in the open and in the midst of heavy gunfire, to rescue little Birdie Africa, the only child survivor of the MOVE blaze.

MOVE destroyed Berghaier's police career, and his marriage, and he spent time in a psychiatric institution. One of the largely unknown casualties of MOVE.

Everybody in Philadelphia has a different opinion about MOVE, and being Philadelphians, they're not shy about sharing their opinions with you, if you want to hear them or not. And I suppose I'm no different.

"The cops were animals-- butchers."

"Those MOVE people had it coming."

"It was the shame of the city."

"Disgraceful."

"MOVE got what they asked for."

Me? I don't know what I think. I think MOVE was begging for a confrontation, but did they get what they asked for? No. Nobody asks to be bombed. I think the police had a very lousy plan. In theory, to pepper-fogger and tear gas the basement and the second floor, to force MOVE to come out the front on the main floor sounds like a good idea on paper, but, in reality, well, it was a disaster of virtually unbelievable proportions.

Watching the hearings, watching Mayor Goode and Police Commissioner Sambor defend the decision to drop the bomb-- well, how can you stomach watching someone defend the decision to drop a bomb on a residence containing children? And how can you just let it burn, destroying almost a whole neighborhood?

But then you remember 1978-- four firefighters shot down. How do you let them near the fire? How do you make that call? How do you just send a team of cops through the front door like they're delivering the milk when there are people with stockpiles of guns inside?

How do you do MOVE differently?

And the answer is, of course, you can't. All you can do is sit and shake your head and live with the knowledge that, twenty-five years ago today, we bombed on our own people. All we can do is ask you to pray for us-- for our sins, for our frailties, for our failures.

And, when you meet us, try not to stare at our black eye. It still hurts.

Yo, Phrom Philly Wit Brotherly Love

You've gotta hand it to Philadelphia-- not even three feet of snow, the result of a historic blizzard, can keep its young sons from killing each other in the streets.

On Thursday, while most people were fast asleep under cozy down blankets or having massive heart attacks from too much shoveling, two young men were slain, in separate incidents, on the streets of North Philadelphia, the latest victims to drown in Philly's brotherly bloodbath.

Now, say what you want about lazy people in the inner city, sucking on the teet of unemployment or SSI or resorting to nefarious proto-occupations like pimp, crackhead or burglar, but you've got to be a pretty industrious S.O.B. to make your way out of your house onto an unplowed North Philly street and take the initiative to put four holes in some other motherfucker's torso, probably over a bag of dope no bigger than my cornhole.

Now that's Philly pride.

When we get bitchslapped by Mother Nature, we don't cower in our rowhomes, we fight back-- against each other, of course. And we don't bother to wait for the cover of darkness to commit these acts of brutality-- the first fatal shooting took place at 10:50am, illuminated by the glow of the sun bouncing off the endless mountains of snow. We don't care who sees-- after all, who's going to stop us? The overworked, underpaid, mismanaged Philadelphia Police Department?

Greenpeace?

No way, man. We've got work to do. There's tons of asses out there to be capped, yo, and Philly is always up to the challenge.

The police have often relied on poor weather to reduce crime rates, citing the fact that, in normal cities, bad weather drastically reduces crime because even hardened criminals historically don't like to get wet or slip on the ice and bruise their tussies. "Rain & snow are the best police partnership in the world," high-ranking cops in white shirts have often said. Well, not in Killadelphia, they're not. Rain? Please-- I'm reloading. Snow? You better duck, motherfuck, 'cuz it's payback time on Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

If you think Philadelphians are going to be deterred from blowing unnatural holes in each other by a little fluffy white stuff, think again. It's like throwing a toy poodle in a black and white striped shirt into the middle of a rabid pit bull fight and expecting it to referee.

You may have your own opinions on murder, but you've really got to respect the dedication to task. I mean, I work for a small non-profit, and I couldn't even be bothered to shovel out my car this morning to go to work, and yet, there are shitskins and fucktards roaming Philly, armed to the grills, who are totally undeterred and undaunted by whatever precipitation threatens to stand in their way. Not only that, their potential victims even find a way to get outside of their shitty, pointless dwellings to offer themselves up as visible targets. And, even as their blood colors the snow a sickening sanguine crimson, I applaud their sheer pluck in just fulfilling their destiny as another dead Philadelphian.

Forget Rocky-- we should build a statue commemorating you, dedicated crime victim, and put it in front of the Art Museum. It would be bronze, of course, and, instead of a triumphant, imaginary figure wearing boxing gloves with its arms upraised, it would be a bronze cast of you, sprawled out on the sidewalk, like a 3-D chalk-outline, and tourists could lie down on the pavement next to you, their limbs grotesquely splayed and their friends could take pictures of it and post it on Facebook. This would require much less energy than running up and down the museum steps.

Yup-- that would be just fine.

A Very Sticky End

Every city is known for notorious acts of crime, violence and degradation. Philadelphia, in case you didn't know or are from some other country, is no different. We've blown up mobsters on the front porches, we've blown up MOVE in their own home, we've executed policemen as they've lain on the sidewalk, helpless on their backs, we've killed each other in the streets for well over a hundred years.

Philadelphia may not have any real celebrities, except for our weathermen, but we do have our celebre villains. Now we can add the name James Davis to the notorious and blood-stained list.

James Davis was arrested on September 26th by officers from the PSCPA for wrapping a cat in duct-tape. Apparently, said feline was troubling Davis by wandering around on the lawn in front of his parent's house. Davis could have solved this particular urban problem simply by saying, "Shoo, cat!" But he didn't. Now, he's in jail awaiting trial. He faces the maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and two years in prison. Personally, I think he should be duct-taped, smeared from head-to-toe in Fancy Feast and be thrown inside the Philadelphia Zoo's tiger exhibit, but that's just me.

Obviously, James Davis lacks the coping skills that most of us possess, coping skills which enable us to identify and respond to problems or issues in a normal, unsociopathic way. I wonder what other kinds of fucked up shit this guy has done in the past, before he burst onto the local, dare I say national, scene? Can you imagine how he might deal with a pair of Mormon solicitors at his front door?

I'm glad the sonofabitch is caught, and that this cat (named "Sticky" by the apparently whimsical PSCPA folks) is going to be adopted by a non-nutcase and given a great shot at the good life, but, beyond that, I really can't bring myself to give too much of a shit about this case. It's a water-cooler story, for sure. Everybody in Philadelphia knows who Sticky is, and soon they'll all know who James Davis is: the man with the duct-tape. I accept the value of water-cooler stories-- they give people who might not ordinarly know what to talk about something legitimate to talk about.

"Hey, didja hear about Sticky?"

"Oh, man, I know. That's really fucked up."

Boom, you're in! That's office culture for you. If you can't talk about the Phillies, you can at least talk about Sticky.

The case highlights a couple of things in particular that mystify me about our society. First of all, we really do have a morbid fascination with people who do incredibly sick shit. Serial killers, rapists, duct-tapers, we're obsessed with knowing their motives and their rationales-- why did they do it? How could they do it? We long for the days when, after death, the brains of the criminal element would be removed and studied for any perceived abnormalities-- perhaps that little divot in the temporal region?-- because we know there has to be something in there that separates them from us. Right?

The woeful tale of Sticky the Cat also brilliantly illustrates how much more we culturally love animals than humans. The tipster who narced on James Davis is looking at a $2,000 reward from the Citizens' Crime Commission if Davis gets convicted, which seems like a pretty sure thing since he's already confessed. Over the weekend, Philadelphia Police Officer Samuel Rivera was trying to stop a reckless Lexus while on his bike, and the driver of the Lexus deliberately rammed Rivera, throwing him to the ground, and sped off into the night. The reward for information leading to this asshole's arrest? $1,000.

(The Lexus' license plate contains the letters "HBZ," if anybody gives a shit.)

I am also struck by the tremendous outpouring of affection for this cat Sticky. I suppose it has a lot to do with the picture they took of him, all wrapped up in his little duct-tape coccoon before sedating him and cutting it all off. That picture was splashed all over the city, all over the country, in fact. I wonder if people would have been so engaged in this story if there had been no picture, or only a picture taken after the tape had been removed. We're a have-to-see-it-to-believe it, and I think we're also a have-to-see-it-to-be-affected-by-it culture, and I wonder where that comes from. Maybe it comes from our inundation of media-- constantly being bombarded with images that are too nuts to fathom. When news was delivered solely in print or on radio, we had to take the writer's or the broadcaster's word for it. Now, we need the evidence up front, or we're not buying. Or adopting.

It's funny-- when I first saw the image of Sticky all wrapped up tightly in duct-tape like some kind of feline mummy, my first reaction wasn't a lump in my throat or a sympathetic tear or a longing to punish James Davis for his bizarre and cruel actions. My mind wandered back to being a 10-year-old camper at a creative arts day camp. I was in a barn with a friend of mine named Josh who was three years older than I. Like so many kids, Josh enjoyed relating jokes, and he had one for me that he whispered in my ear.

"Hey, I got a question for you. Why do you wrap a hamster in duct-tape?"

I looked at him.

"I don't know," I said, "why?"

"So it doesn't explode when you fuck it!"

Coolification

What the hell is going on?

Seriously-- don't you sometimes watch yourself some TV and that exclamation/rhetorical question just slips effortlessly from your lips? My wife and I just saw an advertisement for something called "Nat Geo."

"What the fuck is 'Nat Geo?'" I asked Goodwife Apron.

"I dunno," she replied.

And then, at the commercial's conclusion, the emblem of a small, yellow rectangle with a globe inside of it appeared on the screen, and the words "National Geographic" fanned out across the screen and the deep, resounding bass voice of the announcer commanded you to tune into "Nat Geo."

Nat Geo.

What the hell is going on?

Who is the marketing genius who was hired to flip up National Geographic's pink Izod polo shirt collar? Come on. You can't just slip a pair of Ray Bans on a motherfucker and call it "cool." Or "Nat Geo" for that matter. The thing is, National Geographic wasn't cool when it was a magazine, and it isn't cool now that it's a cable channel. And it never will be. Period. I don't care what you call it-- "When Gazelles Attack," "So You Think You Can Hibernate?," or "The Bestial Rape Channel," sorry-- it's just National Geographic. Now, granted, National Geographic magazines are probably the publication where I saw my first pair of unadorned breasts, and I give obligatory props for that. Yes, they were a pair of floppy pancake-lookin' things, tenuously attached to the chests of several women from the Yanomamo tribe, but full nip is full nip. And these nips were full, no doubt. Like the hubcaps on a Hupmobile.

Still, why does a storied, venerable institution like National Geographic feel the need to coolify itself? What does it stand to gain?

It's happening in my city, too, and I'll bet it's happening in your city, too. Yes, even yours, Morgantown, West Virginia. The coolification of stodgy, stolid institutions to attract a younger, hipper crowd. I never thought, for instance, that hospitals would have much trouble attracting young people. I mean, young people flock to hospitals every day for a colorful variety of maladies-- from sexually transmitted diseases to closed head injuries from dumbass motorcycle-without-a-helmet stunts to multiple gunshot wounds (this is Philadelphia, after all). But hospitals are definitely marketing themselves on television to the youngins.

Take a look at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

They're working a couple angles in the name department. They sometimes go by "TJU" but they're not satisfied with mere abbreviations-- oh, no-- their television ad campaign, which must be costing them millions and millions of dollars an on-air minute, usually ends with "Call us by our first name. Jeff."

Now, that's kind of funny, because it's Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, right? Shouldn't we be calling them "Thomas" or, at least, "Tom?" I mean, how fucking stupid can you get. I'm sure Thomas Jefferson took a big, bloody shit in his coffin when that commercial first rolled out on the airwaves.

Then there's the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Now, I admit that this is a fucking mouthful, no doubt. Since my wife had surgery there, I've had to say that name a lot, and I've used several of its abbreviations in casual conversation, but it always landed me and the folks with whom I was conversing in confusion-- because there are too many coolisms/abbreviations. There's UPenn. People think you're talking about the school. There's Penn Medicine. Well, there's like, five Penn Medicine satellite campuses all across the suburbs, so people in the burbs can pretend like they're getting Penn care. They're not. Then there's U of P. Well, that just sounds nasty. There's also "HUP." People think you're a drill sergeant. Nobody knows what the fuck you're talking about. It's awesome.

We've also got this cute little museum downtown. It's called "The Benjamin Franklin Institute." Well, it was called that, but now it's commercially known as "The Franklin."

Seriously.

They also call it "TFI" on their website. No doubt this is to honor those in South Philly who, when friends ask if they're going to see the new Star Trek exhibit and where is it showing, they, adorned in their traditional wife-beaters, gold chains and smoothing back their shellaqued hair respond,

"Yea! I'm goin' to The Fuckin' Institute! You's wanna come?"

Victimized

While visiting my sister-in-law in Pittsburgh, Mrs. Apron and I were violated.

It was yesterday morning and we were making trips from the house to the car, loading up our overnight bags and our kosher-for-Passover roadtrip snacks. I thought I was being diligent about locking the car with the remote gizmo thing each time, but I guess I wasn't.

When it finally came time to go, after we hugged my sister-in-law goodbye and after I got a final neck-lick-a-thon from her obsessive-compulsive cairn terrier, my wife got in the car and immediately observed a smell (can you observe a smell?) that was not heretofore present in the vehicle.

It was patchouli, the scent that nine out of ten potheads prefer.

Uh-oh.... who's been sleeping in Mama's PT Cruiser?

The worst part, I think, about theft isn't what's stolen (in our case, it was our portable GPS system that we had really not done a stellar job of hiding) it's just the fact of some unauthorized shithead getting his presence and his stank all over your own personal space. I think most victims of larceny will tell you that, although they might not use the word "stank." Whoever it was also stole the emergency two dollars that we had been keeping in the glovebox, but that was it. As far as we know. Because we model the interior space of our vehicles after images of post-hurricane trailer-parks, it's difficult to ascertain exactly what's missing and what's present.

I was annoyed that he didn't steal our food bags, actually. Then at least I could have reasoned, "Well, okay, the sonofabitch is homeless, so he's going to sell the GPS for crack, fine, but at least he's also stealing food-- I can live with a Jean Valjean illegally entering our PT Cruiser if it's going to feed him, but the food was untouched.

That's probably because it was filled with pesadik brownies and figs.

I can rationalize that maybe it's good that I left the door unlocked, because otherwise, if he really wanted the GPS, he could have picked up a rock and smashed through the passenger-side window, and that really would have sucked-- because we would have had to undertake the six-hour drive back to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh with a trashbag taped to the door frame, and that's just not cool. Part of me wished that I'd seen him in the car, that I could have intervened, but those fantasies of heroism could easily end with me getting shot and, over a GPS unit (an entry-level model at that) is that really worth it?

Fortunately, we didn't need the GPS unit to get from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. It's 76-West. For 310 miles.

It's funny-- part of me desperately wants to feel bad for people who steal, especially in these economic times. Part of me wants to pull their balls off and stick them in their eye sockets. I'd never really been the victim of crime before, and I guess you can't know how you're going to feel about it until it happens to you. After I realized it happened, I felt shitty. Like a fool.

I hope that GPS unit buys you a nice rock of crack, you bastard. One thing, though: if you can afford a bottle of patchouli oil with which to slather yourself from head to toe, you can afford to take a fucking shower, too.