Merry Christmas, hope you enjoyed my neighbor's copy of AARP magazine.

Fun Fact:

Our mailboxes got broken into last night!

I don't typically pick up my mail every day but I have been lately because of the promise of Christmas cards and CDs from an internerd CD exchange I'm participating in, so luckily, none of my mail was stolen, but I don't think my neighbors were that lucky.

I noticed it when I was on my way out to work this morning and then since I wasn't planning on coming home for a few days because of the holiday, I decided to run back upstairs and hide my computer just in case. Bad guys in the lobby can't get through to the storage area or the garage, but if they were bold enough, they could take the elevator and rob the apartments themselves and I have insurance to protect me against such things but I didn't want to come home from Christmas with the family and find that my computer, my only real thing of value (namely because of all the pictures and music stored on it) was gone. Better to be safe than sorry.

Funny enough, I did think "Ooh, I hope they take my TV" because I have to turn it on and off five times before it will work and since it used to be only four times, I KNOW it's on its last legs and if they steal it, then that saves me the hassle of figuring out the environmentally responsible way of disposing of it. That said, free TV removal is not enough of a selling point to get over the NASTY feeling I'd have knowing that someone gross was in my home and touching my things.

The world does not have enough antibacterial wipes.

Our house was robbed when I was in high school and one of the thieves (who turned out to be punk "friends" of my brothers) went #2 in MY bathroom. I remember coming home, seeing it and being SEETHING mad at my brothers for using my bathroom at all, much less neglecting to flush. AGAIN. That was before I realized we'd been robbed. And disgusting as this is, I remember looking at it in the toilet and CONSCIOUSLY thinking that it didn't look like a Holt turd. That knowledge, I can assure you, was due to the fact that my brothers were frequent non-flushers...not because we sit around and compare notes. So when I heard about the robbery, I was like OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! NO WONDER it didn't look like one of ours!!!!!!!!!!!!

But of course, it took me a week to use that bathroom again. I cleaned the toilet within an inch of its life but the thought of the robber's ass on my toilet seat totally skeeved me out. I don't think antibacterial wipes existed or were commonplace back in the olden days of the early 1990s, but if they were, I would have wiped the heck out of that seat every damn time I used it. JUST IN CASE.

Speaking of antibacterial wipes -- some of you might remember that time I had my ass pinched by that nasty looking sex offender outside of my apartment when Carrie and I lived together. I had been bending over the bumper of a van, reaching in as Carrie was leaning in the side door and pushing something toward me. I looked up and accidentally made eye contact with the guy and then he walked past and pinched my butt. I was shocked and I was like "OMG CARRIE HE JUST PINCHED MY ASS! WHAT DO I DO?!??!" and she was like "KICK HIS ASS!" And the first thing that popped into my mind was that if I punched him, I'd have to touch him and I'd be SOILED. I ended up just standing there, totally stupified, staring at him walk away, but when I woke up from the fog, I marched back inside and immediately rubbed an antibacterial wipe on the butt of my pants.

The day passed and later that night Carrie and I were sitting around and we heard shouting on the street. We looked out the window and saw the ass pincher being screamed at by two women. I don't know what they were screaming because it was in Spanish, but from what I could tell, it surely wasn't "Hey there friend, what's up?" We debated what we should do and we called my brother to ask him what he thought and the general consensus was that if he was out on the street, drunk and harrassing women, we should call the cops. So we did.

They came to the door and we told them what had happened earlier in the day and that several hours later, he was still hanging around being a slimeball. They asked if I wanted to press charges and I was like nah, just send him on his way. Done. Except that then they came back half an hour later and tried to get me to press charges but I was on my way to Burning Man the next day and I had bigger fish to fry so I declined. But then they came back AGAIN and said that SURPRISE! Turns out he's a registered sex offender. Was I SURE I didn't want to press charges?? Well crap. I kinda HAD to, no? So I did and I had to ID him and give my statement and blah blah blah.

Then like a month later, I happened to be home for lunch and the Public Defender knocked on my door. I know I didn't have to talk to him but my story was what it was, it wasn't gonna change, and besides, he was kinda cute...so I talked to him and told him the same story I told the police. He was like "You seem normal and upstanding and well put together (that last one is the way to my heart, you know it is) and everything you've told me is the same as the statement you signed, so thank you very much, blah blah blah. Except one thing -- your statement said you antibacterial wiped the back of your pants after he pinched you???"

And OH MY GAH, Internet -- I know he thought I was a nutter because of that. BUT SERIOUSLY. A nasty, filthy, drunk sex offender touches me and I'm NOT supposed to clean his cooties off?? If he touched my HAND, I don't think anyone would begrudge me washing my hands, but de-germing my pants is crazy??

NO.

But anyhooters...back to the matter at hand: My mailboxes. Now I'm left wondering how the bad guy got into the lobby in the first place. I'm guessing he followed someone's visitor in, but, and maybe I'm stereotyping here, don't bad guys LOOK like bad guys? I mean, the shady people in my neighborhood are pretty obviously shady so WHY WOULD YOU LET THEM FOLLOW YOU IN?