The Intruder

There's a man in my neighborhood who used to like to break into my apartment. Actually, that's not fair: it was probably not a man, it was probably a woman. I knew this because none of the electronics were ever missing. My laptop, my roommate's laptop, the DVD players, the digital cameras - all remained after the break-ins. The only things that ever appeared to have been touched were the contents of my medicine cabinet - creams, lotions, pills, etc. - which I found congregating in the sink, on the floor, or even in the toilet when I came home. It always upset me, the floating facewash. I'm sure you understand.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on. Oh no, I'd think, rounding the corner that leads to my bathroom, as I caught sight of the doors of my medicine cabinet. Wide open at odd angles - I could tell they weren't how I left them. I'm a messy person, but I have an excellent memory. I know when I've closed a door and when I haven't. Slowly, suspiciously, as if the perp might be hiding in the shower, I'd walk into the bathroom and survey the scene. Yep. Always just as it had been the last time: everything out of the medicine cabinet, nothing left in. And then I started to notice that while everything may have been out, everything was there. SAY, WHAT KIND OF A BURGLAR ARE YOU? I'd shout into mid-air. No response. Sheesh. If I had bothered to break in to someone's apartment, I'd at least take a bottle of Ibuprofen, for the road.

Eventually, it occurred to me that a theftless intrusion was a whole different game. My stuff is worth stealing, like anyone's stuff. A couple of minutes on e-bay can teach you all you need to know about stuff: people like it. Even when it's crap. Especially, they like the crap they don't currently have. Therefore, if they have an opportunity to seize such crap, and no one is around to stop them, whether it's right or wrong, they may well take it. So, clearly, what I had here was not a physical case of stuff at all, or even crap.

My neighbor owns a hammer, which causes pounding, which causes shaking, which causes mess. My neighbor's hammering of her wall is an act that I believe to be independent of me. Perhaps she redecorates frequently. Likes to put up pictures. Is a carpenter. I've got no reason to think she's been hammering her wall in the middle of the day specifically to antagonize me; I am probably at work, I produce almost no noise with which to anger her, and, in fact, we've never met. Besides that, in case it matters - and I think it usually does - she has an angelic singing voice and is most likely a lovely person.

But the hammering, which isn't about me, is still an intrusion on my life. The wall shakes and the facewash falls right out of the cabinet. Every so often, I have to clean up my bathroom. I didn't say it was a bad thing - the bathroom has to be tidied up occasionally anyway, and otherwise I might never do it. My neighbor knows neither what she does to me, nor what she does for me. And this, dear readers, is something we must always remember.