If you've talked to me since Monday, you've heard this one. But I'm telling it again anyway, because it's been the prominent story of my week thus far...
Monday morning, Mrs. J. West and I dropped off our car at the dealership in Alexandria; it had flooded with water over the weekend and we needed to check it for a leak. We took the Metro back into the city, ready to meet up at the gym that night four the standing appointment with our trainer.
I got out at Dupont Circle and was standing at 20th and P, across from the CVS, waiting for a bus to pass before I crossed. Standing next to me were a bunch of high school boys, about 17; I wasn't paying any attention to them (thank you iPod), but suspect that even if I had been, I would have been surprised when one of them reached out and grabbed me by the left nipple.
At that, I spun around. "The fuck?!"
The kid just looked back at me. "What?"
"What the FUCK?!!" I repeated more emphatically, clenching my fists.
He grinned and parroted me. "What the FUCK?!!" he said.
You can probably imagine how badly I wanted to deck the dude. Badly. Desperately. But the problems here were obvious. First, I'm an adult, he's a kid, and there's no scenario here that begins with me clocking him, but doesn't end with me in jail. Second, he's got three friends. If I hit him, they all jump me.
Thus when the kid reaches out for me again I reach the pinnacle of my physical response: I knock his hand out of the way and wheel off, seething. Livid, as a matter of fact. I want to go back and grab the kid by the throat, tell him if he touches me again I'll tear his goddamned face off.
My fury was so distracting, as a matter of fact, that I didn't notice until I was getting ready to leave the office at 5:00 that my gym bag was gone.
Oh, I ran through the routine: swept through the whole office; checked with my coworkers to see if they remembered seeing me with it; checked in with the Starbucks downstairs and the Metro station. But I knew where it had gone. For the second time in a day, I felt violated by that bunch of punks up the street. They'd taken my fucking gym bag. The one guy grabbing my boob was the diversion: while I was focusing my rage and flabbergast at him, one of his friends had lifted the bag off my shoulder (it wasn't slung across my chest, you understand; just dangling loosely from one shoulder).
But you know, I was only upset for a while. There wasn't much of value in the stolen bag--sneakers and a change of clothes. The principle was what bugged me...and after that I just sort of transitioned to grudging admiration. That was one slick maneuver, getting me so appalled that I didn't even notice something being taken from my person. Frankly I'm impressed.
I'm not sure if there's a moral here. Unfortunately the best I can come up with is that I should have hit the kid, and somehow that doesn't seem to wash...
