A couple days ago, my Mamaji (uncle) and I rented a 2000 PSI pressure washer from Home Depot to clean his driveway and backyard pavement. His neighbor (”Simon”) was going to chip in as well so he could clean his yard, too.
After we finished the driveway, we let Simon have it for a while. I went out for a bit and told my uncle I’d be back later to help finish up. A couple hours later, I got a call from my Mamiji (aunt) telling me there was no need to come back.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because someone stole the pressure washer,” was her reply. Simon had gone inside for a moment, and when he returned, the hose had been cut, and the pressure washer was gone.
I was shocked. For the next couple hours, I thought a lot about how our expectations of people can be so magnificently out of whack.
I wouldn’t have dreamed in a thousand years that someone would be scoping out Simon’s yard for the perfect moment to steal the pressure washer. And those things aren’t light. You need two people to lift it onto a truck bed to haul it away. Or you can wheel it away, but good luck doing that quickly.
I never lock my house’s front door; I leave my windows open; I’ll even leave my car running if I’m parked in the driveway and will be quick. This incident made me think a lot about how our attitudes are so different pre-event versus post-event.
Pre-event, I’m confident in my fellow human that my car will still be on my driveway when I come back out of my house.
Post-event, I’m angered at myself for my initial confidence. I’ll likely experience an increase of distrust.
But what’s the alternative? Can I merely choose to have my post-event attitude all the time? If I’m cautious in the beginning, I’ll never leave my car running or my doors unlocked or my windows open… So I’ll maintain ownership of my belongings, but what have I sacrificed?
April 28th, 2006
Once when I was travelling from San Jose to San Diego, I was stopped for a body and bag search. Nothing out of the ordinary; I did the shoe thing, stretch thing, look casual thing. They took my bag and rubbed a circular disc of cloth around the outside and inside. I think this is supposed to pick up particles that could be drugs, explosives, poisons, etc.
As the person checking my luggage (Mr. America) turned the bag around to access the outer pocket, he looked up at me.
“Oh no,” I thought. I knew what this was about. The outer pocket has a busted zipper. Many years ago, someone managed to zip it up with the zipper on the inside of the pocket. So there’s no way to open it. Obviously, I never put anything in it, but the person rubbing the bag couldn’t know the difference between that and me hiding dynamite in an inaccessible pocket. He called over a vest-clad, firearm-wielding, squinty-eyed friend of his.
Mr. America and Dirty Harry examined the pocket for a while. They emptied my bag and tried to push the zipper up, down, left, and right from the inside of the bag. It didn’t work of course. Short of cutting open the pocket, there was no way they would ever find out what’s in there. They patted the bag to make sure nothing bulky was in there, and that was that.
But wait, there’s more.
Don’t forget about the circular disc Mr. America was rubbing along the sides of my bag. They have to have this piece of cloth analyzed by their robot. The robot recognizes the dangerous particles and tells Mr. America what’s up.
So I’m repacking my bag as the robot starts to beep.
“Oh no,” I thought. I knew what this was about. The clothes were all laced with dried gunpowder, which I planned on igniting once I got in the plane… Wait, no I wasn’t! What’s this all about? My bag is clean!
Seriously, though, I wasn’t planning anything of the sort.
Mr. America told me to step away from my bag and called over Dirty Harry again. They spent some time with their backs to me talking to the robot. Then they rubbed my bag again with a fresh disc and had it reanalyzed. It beeped again.
Now they’re getting a little interested. I’m sure they were thinking they would finally have something more interesting to say at dinner than, “Yea, no terrorists attacked today…” They began picking through my stuff with what seemed to be Jack Bauer intensity. They carefully removed article after article of clothing as they reached the bottom of the bag. Then one of them stopped suddenly. He looked up at his buddy with a serious look on his face. Was it relief? caution? glee?
No. It was dissappointment. He’d found my cleats. The grass on the bottom of the shoes contained fertilizer which contains many of the same ingredients as some bombs.
They talked to the robot some more and together determined that I was free to go. Believe it or not, I made my flight and had a great time home in San Diego.
April 18th, 2006