Beloved and I have an ongoing debate. I believe the best in people, and for the most part I like people. I think, on the whole, people are good. Beloved likes few people, and mistrusts the population as a whole. Beloved locks doors and windows obsessively; I am cavalier about such things, locking car doors when I remember to do so and when it is convenient.
My faith in humanity has been tested this week. First, someone stole my iPod out of the car. While I’m cavalier about locking doors, I am pretty careful about not leaving valuables in it, especially in plain sight. The iPod was half-hidden under the cup holder, and someone must have been rifling through the van to find it. It took me about three days to decide that it was actually stolen and not misplaced by me, but after a thorough search of the usual places and a clear memory of bringing it out to the car with no corresponding memory of bringing it back in, I resigned to the fact that someone had in fact snatched it some time during a given 24 hour period.
As if that weren’t insult enough, less than a week later I realized the transmitter I plug into the lighter to broadcast the iPod through the car radio had also been stolen. Not at the same time, mind, because it was looking at the empty transmitter that made me realize the iPod was missing in the first place.
Now, I can see someone stealing an iPod. It’s $150 worth of electronics, easy to steal and probably easy to resell or just use. But stealing a $10 transmitter? That’s just insulting, and somehow the latter bothers me more than the former.
And yes, I know, I should have been more compulsive about locking the doors and learned my lesson with the iPod. But when I’m hauling 25 lbs of Lucas and his baby carrier and the backpack and my purse and gods know what else in and out of the van, it’s not always at the forefront of my mind to lock the doors, especially in the never-ending rain we’ve been having lately.
Sigh. Could have been a much more expensive lesson, true, but I prefer to imagine I live in a world where I can leave my doors mostly unlocked. Now I lock the doors regularly, and am just a little bit sad every time I juggle the baby and the bag and whatever else I’m holding, trying to find the switch to unlock the doors.