The Crazy, The Homeless, and the Robbed

For those of you who don't know, I have lived most of my life in urban or suburban environments. I was born and spent the first ten years of my life in the greater Boston area. When I was ten, my family moved to San Diego. Having been in cities as varied as Quito, Madrid, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Beijing, and Kolkata, it would not be a boast to say I am well aware of some of the dangers of being in an urban environment. That said, with the exception of Rome when I was around thirteen or so, I have never been robbed. Even when I was in Rome, it was my father who was the target of the pickpockets.

However, last week, I lost the claim that I have never been robbed. I lost nothing valuable, a half filled bottle of Sprite which cost less than 50 cents. The experience though is one that I don't think I'll soon forget. Actually as I look back on it, I find the whole thing slightly comical. I was walking back from lunch across the river with one of my fellow English teachers. This bridge, one of two primary bridges in the city is heavy with both pedestrian and automotive traffic. It is also one of the favored hangouts of a man with large bag, shabby clothes, and a look on his face that I (for the life of me) cannot decipher. On the particular day in question, my friend and I were walking back on one side of the bridge, and the man was sitting on the other. He got up, crossed through heavy traffic, and took the half filled sprite bottle from my hand with an unreadable look on his face. He then proceeded to cross heavy traffic again for his favored seat on the other side of the bridge.

I will consider myself lucky if that bottle of Sprite is the only thing that I get robbed of in the course of my lifetime. It was no great loss, and besides the initial shock of the experience, I can't say I'm really upset over it anymore. I am able to joke about it now, which I feel is a step in the right direction. Why he wanted my Sprite bottle and not my friends bottle of green tea (which was the same color and roughly same size), I'll never know. I guess it's just part of living in any city, or living anywhere really. I'm unharmed, and all things considered, this is far from the worst thing that could happen to anyone.

That's all for now, keep tuned to see just what I go through next. Until then