Tuesday, February 7, 2012

A Primer for Real Life

Someone wonderful wrote:

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. 
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. 

Having done all of this, I would like to add:

Live in Africa. It will make you gangster. And you will need this after leaving California. 

I went to San Francisco trusting no one ("Why is this person smiling at me?") and left three years later having faith in most. 

That ended on Friday.

I made it to 29 1/3 without ever having anything stolen from me. I felt pretty good about that. It's almost CV-worthy. Then a "maintenance man" snagged my sweet, sweet Android during the few seconds it took me to walk to the kitchen.

Honestly, screw the phone. That's not the issue. It took all of 11 minutes to replace it. I even kept my number.

And the fact of the matter is that that stupid phone would cost a housekeeper two-months' pay. 

So if my phone feeds a family of fifteen for a while, cool. I will write it off as a charitable contribution. 

What kills is that someone climbed five floors above the bloody Maltese embassy, identified that I was alone, surveyed the room, sent me on a wild goose chase, entered my personal space, took something from me and then looked me in the eye before vanishing like Keyser effing Söze.

Damn you, California! You had me thinking the world was all high-fives from strangers on Fillmore Street.  I am ruined. I revert now to my original meanness. Nobody puts Baby in a corner.  

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