Tom Sawyer

It was finally a nice day in Milwaukee.  Finally.  Regrettably, I was forced to yet again ignore the piles of dogshit in our yard to spend several hours in the office, getting ready for the new week and the piles of other types of feces being prepared to drop on me   like I was Biff in "Back To The Future"

My shit.  Let me show you it.

After stopping at Subway for a sandwich (off my back you foodie elitists) and coming up the stair to my office, I saw the first indication that this day maybe would not be so fine.  One of the panels to my office door was missing, and the door was unlocked.  Opening the door -- shards of wood from the missing panel.  Ooohhhhhhhh shit.  Poopie.

A quick look around- no significant fuckage.  Was it just some passing drunks?  There's a bar right downstairs, after all.  I don't see any vomit or piss though.  Although the toilet room was filthy.  Not the interloper's fault though, we're pigs.

Eventually I looked in depth and figured out that our camera bag was stolen.  Shit, nice camera.  Fortunately, we are in the habit of downloading it every time we use it, so nothing lost there.  

So..... I made a mental note to call all the various officials on Monday and got down to fuckin work.  Townhouses don't draw themselves, you know.  Over the course of the day, I finally tumbled to the fact that a few other items were missing; an SLR camera (that my parents had given me ) and a bag of measuring stuff.  I imagine he thought the bag had better stuff than measuring tapes and flashlights, but fuck 'im. 

So my day was winding to a close and I was packing up (just spending a last few minutes looking at blogs and listening to the new Rush live release, Brando) when I... heard something.  Turning down the music, I heard something again.  Something furtive.  Something -- Someone.  Someone!!

I jumped out of my chair and ran around the corner of the double doors leading into my office.  The office lights were out, although the night had not fully fallen and some light filtered in through our windows.  A ... person... was skulking, is the best word, around the front desk.  "HEY!@!!" I bellowed.  Have you ever heard me yell?  They probably heard it on the street below.  Dude heard it, certainly.  With a little luck, he peed himself.  For a split second, I thought it might be Anthony, the guy who cleans my office and has been notoriously absent for several weeks.  But dude said "Ohsorrytheressomebodyheresorry" and turned around to scurry out the door which  Anthony wouldn't have done.  Besides, you know I locked that damn door all day, because I was nervous.  Dude reached through the opening to unlock it.

  Now, I'm a big guy.  And I've been pretty well trained in self defense.  I go just about anywhere without much worry, and when I saw the break in initially this morning, my thought was even if the guy came back, why shoudl I be scared?  I could kick his head offa his neck.

But as I ran forward and threw the deadbolt behind Dude, I was shit-scared.  My heart was pumping full throttle and I was moving like a hyperactive gerbil with a butt-load of caffeine.  And sugar.  And meth.  I'm still coming down after several drinks.  I ran back to the desk and hit 911.  It took like three seconds to be connected and it seemed like 10 minutes.  For a second or two, I was wondering why the phones weren't working.  Then an operator answered, and asked me a bunch of nonsense question.  Well they seemed like nonsense.  

"A GUY!! HE CAME IN MY OFFICE!! THE DOOR WAS LOCKED!! A GUY, THIS GUY!!  I CHASED HIM AWAY!!"

eventually she got something coherent out of me, and they sent Milwaukee's finest.  I just got done with them and the Detectives, and frankly, I'm impressed.  Not the least by the blues walking through my building with weapons drawn, telling the dust bunnies to come out if they didn't want to be shot.

Detective asked me if I wanted to prosecute.  I was noncommittal at first, but kept thinking about that SLR camera that my parents gave me a few years back.  Fucker took the camera my Dad gave me, and I don't have enough things that my Dad gave me.  

Fucker.  Not my Dad, the Dude.  Fucker.