What a drag.
Still, it was sort of exhilarating.
Tonight was my one year anniversary of moving to Washington. I spent it at some friends' house a few blocks north from where I live. We ate excellent spinach lasagna while watching some crumby sitcoms. Something about Julia Louis-Dreyfus sleeping with Andy Richter. Everyone had had an intense work-filled weekend, so our brains were throughly switched off. Soon I said goodbye to head home and do a little more work.
I stuck in my earbuds and a few blocks south arrived at my street. By this point I had "Hanningfield Window" by Squarepusher blaring away ( which by the way is an excellent track to get mugged to). I noticed a guy hanging out in a dark, little staircase at the beginning of the street. It wasn't really a spot many people would choose to hang out in, so I thought "man, this guy looks a little sketchy, I'm going to cross the street." So I did, and I figured it was nothing. There are always people hanging out on my street. Either way, my place was about three houses up from where I was.
After passing a couple houses, I saw a black thingy sort of go to the right past my head. I turned around and there's a dude with a gun on me. He pointed it in that sort of elbow up, angled down, gangsters-in-the-movies sort of way. Anyway, he said "Don't move. Give me all your money," which I only mildly understood above the sound of my ipod. I handed him my wallet and he said "that everything? give me everything," and I said, "dude, that's it, really. Want my ipod?" I tried to hand it to him and guy went "I don't want that shit," and stepped back a little. Since when were 4g ipods not good enough for thieves? We had a quiet, paused moment where it seemed like neither of us knew what to do. What's the protocol for the post-mugging anyway? I just turned around and walked to my house. He walked back across the street. I got to my porch and I saw him get in a new silver Cadillac DeVille with tinted-out windows and big chrome wheels. Off he went. What a blast that was.
Anyway, I called the police and a few of them came pretty quickly. Honestly, that part was kinda fun. I sat in a car with a detective who asked me a bajillion questions about the guy with the gun. The detective was amazed that the mugger would let me see him walk back to his car. Apparently our street's gotten a little crappy recently, so he suggested avoiding walking around there. Unfortunately, the other side of the street is pretty crumby too.
The detective asked me to get in a police car with an officer to drive over to the scene of some accident involving a car with the same description as the car I saw drive off. That was Officer Graves I went with. Rad dude. He had a little pig statue on his dashboard. Anyway, it wasn't the same car, and it looked like no one got hurt in that accident, so that's cool at least.
We didn't catch the bad guy. Oh well. At least no one got shot.
In the end, the thing I'm happiest about is that the mugger didn't take my bag, which had a gift my friends had made me for Christmas. It's a mirror with plastered-on images of architectural screens by Erwin Hauer. An excellent gift for a geek like me:
Stay safe, everyone!
