Open Letter to the Guy Who Stole My Stuff

Dear Guy Who Stole My Stuff,

Dude. Seriously. I was having a bad enough day. I’d already found out that my mad Tetris skills had gone to waste in the artful packing of my carry-on luggage – a backpack that I’d coaxed into containing 37 square feet of stuff while somehow remaining under the size and weight restrictions – when I was told I’d have to check it because it contained toothpaste, which somehow qualifies as a liquid. Forgoing the opportunity to point out that I’ve never enjoyed a tall glass of wintergreen Crest on a hot summer day – and that the passengers themselves are, in fact, mostly liquid – I checked the bag without complaint. After all, I wasn’t about to start questioning a system that’s put in place for my security.

So when my bag arrived on the other side – minus my sunglasses and digital camera – my mind raced to figure out why they might have been confiscated for the sake of national security. Could the sunglasses have been taken to shield the eyes of a fashion conscious secret service agent? Was the camera spirited away as part of a super-secret spy satellite designed to take photos with a whopping 2.1 megapixels of resolution? My guess is no. As cool as these possibilities sound, I’m pretty sure that you stole my stuff.

First off, you can’t steal from someone heading to Las Vegas. It just isn’t done. Think for a second about what kind of luck you’re giving that person when they’re going to the one city where they need it most. Aside from, you know, Fallujah or something. In fact, I’m convinced that your theft started a chain reaction of bad luck that had me actually buying into a friend’s “foolproof” blackjack system, getting mugged by a diminutive Korean stripper/real estate agent known only as Jade Fantasee [sic] and – adding insult to injury – getting my bag lost by the airline on the return trip.

Worse yet, my luck isn’t getting any better. This morning, the entire dairy shelf of my office’s fridge collapsed, covering me with vanilla creamer. While this finally made it evident why the airline industry is treating liquids as a hazard, it also means the bad luck you’ve sent my way is gaining enough steam to pose a physical threat.

What really gets me is that the stuff wasn’t even all that great. Sure the glasses were pretty cool, but the camera? It’s four years old. And compared to what’s out there today, only slightly better for capturing images than a stick and a patch of sand. Even the officer at the airport couldn’t believe it had been taken, shaking his head in disbelief as he wrote a report that will be, I’m convinced, source material for the worst-ever episode of CSI:Las Vegas. Even so, the little point and shoot had its uses – namely taking snapshots for posting here on the site. So I want you to look at the black box at the top of the screen. You know – the one that would have had a picture of me winning an eleventy-billion dollar jackpot if you hadn’t cursed me with the luck of a black cat walking under a ladder in front of a store that sells broken mirrors. Stare long into that abyss, my thievish friend, and know that I’m coming for my stuff. You won’t even know I’m there until you catch a whiff of curdling vanilla creamer on the air, and by then it will be too late.

Dick.

Yours in promised vengeance,

- Ryan Landels*

*Signed in blood