By Jim Hagarty
2015
I love my town.
The matter was urgent and getting worse. And there before me, the golden arches and that little room inside that spells relief. I parked and bolted from my car. Ran like a wild man on a mission. Emerging with a smile of gratitude and even joy (got Christmas music on the radio so the word joy just sprang to mind) I decided to reward myself and the restaurant by buying a burger and milk with some cash I had stuffed in my pocket. I sat down and enjoyed my meal.
Finished I walked out to the very crowded parking lot to see one car sitting there with the driver’s door open and no one inside. “What the …” was all I got out before I recognized the car with the door open and then I promptly and appropriately finished that sentence with the eff word followed by a question mark.
It had finally happened after all these years of carefully locking my doors. Someone had broken in in broad daylight. I approached the car carefully in case a terrorist group had dropped a grenade inside. Everything was just as I had left it when I hit the eject button including my wallet which was sitting on the passenger seat. I checked it right away. I think there was more cash in it than when I jumped out of the vehicle. My imagination or my Christmas miracle? Hard to say.
Priorities change. Thirty years ago a girlfriend and I broke up. I was devastated for two months. Today I accidentally threw a fast-food coffee cup in a dumpster without peeling off the free coffee sticker. It’s like 30 years ago all over again. I am thinking, for the first time in my life, of going dumpster diving.
I am trying to think of a downside to this drastic action. Nothing is coming to me.
