Back

It almost sounded like a call to action. Give me your money. I’d heard it before, from the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity. But tone – tone is important. This was no call. It was a gloved and hooded 250-pound demand. Spat up from history’s throat, these words were old and experienced; they had begun in the early wars, passed through the golden age of motion pictures, made euphemistic appearances on behalf of the underfunded, and were back – here, now – on the modern, lamp-lit streets of Baltimore. Just those words, numerous potholes, a thuggish fellow, and me.

And then I woke up. But that’s not important to the story.

The story is: you lose. You walk along, and for no discernable reason, people take your stuff, or it falls out of your pocket, and you lose. This is not my favorite piece of life. I also dislike the waking up sweaty and scared when I only dream that I lose. Which has been happening more or less continuously since I was introduced to the concept of theft.

This story has no ending. It's not a good story. I’m only writing it to say that you should be careful, and you should hang on.