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I don't know what to do. This past Sunday, I was victimized. The pain of loss is very real, and perhaps more so when it is senseless. When one goes through a hard time, one thing that helps ease the pain is understanding the reasoning behind the actions. Things tend to hurt more when they are purely random. When you are victimized and ask yourself "Why me?", it becomes a harder pill to swallow when the answer is "I dunno". I'm pretty shaken up, and I'm looking for revenge in some way, shape or form. Someone has to pay. Now I know what Antoine Dodson was going through when that guy broke into his house, had no idea who it was and still said "We gonna find you" and "Hide ya kids, hide ya wives and hide ya husbands". This is good advice, Antoine. Now, let me begin my story. Take this as a cautionary tale. It sucks it happened to me, but as long as my troubles help others who read this be more careful, it is worth it. This could happen to anyone.
It all started on a typical Sunday morning. I was hungover after celebrating my roommates birthday the previous night, and lost an hour due to daylight savings, so I was running on about 4 hours of sleep. As I normally do, I started off the morning by asking myself "Do I have my wallet?" and then "Hey Jim, how can you become a better person today?". Normally I ponder this question and really struggle to come up with ways to improve myself, but today something hit me: get in shape and start running again. For some reason, I was motivated enough to actually register a Visa giftcard online and go to the South Shore Plaza shopping mall, which is down the street from my apartment in Quincy, in hopes of getting new sneakers. I was still in rough shape for the previous night's festivities, and the traffic and sounds of annoying families everywhere didn't help my mood, but I wanted to better myself.
After browsing through the vinyl section at Newbury Comics in an attempt to ease my headache before dealing with annoying salespeople, I made my way over to the Reebok store. On a quick sidenote, just let me say that Reebok sponsoring this CrossFit nonsense is really starting to piss me off. CrossFit is turning into the new Atkins diet: people won't shut the hell up about it. I don't need 39 pictures of you climbing a rope clogging my Instagram. Moving on, I made it to the Reebok store, saw those shoes from that new commercial of those 3 people running from a train to catch the same train at the next stop while some song about Under Dog plays (how do they not get caught without paying at each stop?). Yes, I chose those shoes mostly because that Under Dog song in the commercial is kind of catchy, but they also seem like alright shoes. After telling the salesguy that I wanted those and didn't want to hear about offers, deals on other shoes or if I needed socks, I was in and out of the store in about 10 minutes, which was pretty successful in my opinion. With new shoes and a great confidence in myself to start running again (tomorrow), I decided to treat myself to some lunch at the food court.
The South Shore Plaza food court was a sight to behold that day. With my head throbbing and in desperate need of food, I wandered around the food court aimlessly for 5 minutes before deciding on giving Cheese Boy a try, because there was no line there. After getting my mediocre grilled cheese, side of macaroni and cheese and small Coke, I found a table for one with a pair of elderly women on my right and some bored looking skater punks on my left. As I started eating, I was getting more and more annoyed with all these kids running around in the jungle gym located in front of my table. Why would you put a jungle gym in a mall food court? Haven't these people heard of Chuck E. Cheese? I wanted tranquility while I tried to enjoy the overly peppered mac n cheese, coke and bland grilled cheese. The last thing I needed was some brats from Braintree and Quincy crawling all over the place doing a whole lot of nothing. I was starting to feel a bit irritated with my whole situation.
I was almost done with my meal when I noticed a chubby little Asian boy, not a day older than 5 if I had to guess, running out of the jungle gym entrance. My first thought was "Wow, he looks like the kid from Disney Pixar's smash hit movie Up, but way more Asian". He looked a bit wobbly, but he was runni...err...waddling as fast as he could towards my table. As I watched this kid running towards me, I could tell he was plotting some sort of evil. There was a gleam in his eye and a look of determination on his face. I can almost see it in slow motion right now: him running towards me while some dastardly idea developed in his mind. This kid definitely watched too many cartoons. He was about 20 feet away from my table, heading straight for me and we exchanged glances: mine of confusion, his of determination. I was midway through biting my grilled cheese when he was a mere steps away from my table. I figured he was going to just cut it really close and turn at the last second since my table was a dead end for him unless he turned to the right. Sure enough, the little bastard waddled full speed towards me, shot me the most evil and mischievous smirk I've ever seen, and cut to the right, leaving me frozen in confusion as I watched him take his hotdog-like fingers and snatch up my Coke right off of my table, running off into the sea of people with it. I was left staring with my jaw wide open at the spot where my Coke was on my table, asking myself if that really just happened. It did.
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| This actually might be the kid. Wanted posters will be made soon. |
Chaos. Anarchy. Despair. I was frozen in a state of pure shock. The food court was spinning as I realized that this kid had just jacked my Coke and ran like he stole something. Because, well, he did steal something. My first thought was to go chase him down, but all I could picture was that scene in Super Bad when Officer Seth Rogen chases after Michael Cera and gives up and proclaims that he was the fastest kid in the world. I was in no condition to chase after a 5 year old at that point. I couldn't move mostly out of shock and the hangover. Frantically I looked around at the packed food court, thinking that someone near by me had seen this crime occur. No one was looking my way and apparently hadn't noticed it take place. Was this some sort of joke? Were they all in on it? Had no one noticed a fat 5 year old running down an aisle out of a jungle gym and snatch an innocent tax payer's Coke? What kind of fresh Hell was this? Was this a nightmare? Was this the worst hangover ever, resulting in hallucinations?
I was about to pray to St. Anthony to help find my Coke when another thought came to mind: where are the parents? In most cases, a 5 year old running by himself in a mall has a parent chasing after him/her, right? Just wait for the parent, they'd get the Coke back and give it to me, we'd exchange some fake laughter and I would assure here everything would be okay, even though it clearly wasn't because Asian Up had stolen my Coke and probably got germs all over it, but it would at least give me closure. In probably the most confusing part of this story, no parent ever came chasing after this kid. I lost sight of the little bugger, so hope was pretty much lost at this point of ever getting my Coke back, but where the hell were the parents? I mean even in the Home Alone movies, Kevin McAllister was 8/9, so imagine a 5 year old on the prowl without any parental supervision? None of this made any sense.
The only good part of my meal from Cheese Boy was just stolen from me by a kid who can't tie his own shoes, and I had nowhere to turn. I grew up on the mean streets of East Providence, and I've seen some bad shit go down over the years, but never, ever, had such a hurtful crime been committed. Who the hell takes a man's soda for no reason? This now means I have to get out of this area. I can't wait until my lease is up. I can't take a region where evil lurks around every corner and at eye level with a table. I would like to take this opportunity to tell you all that a 5$ reward and/or a Breakfast at Jimothy's T-shirt (when I make them) will be given to anyone who can provide me information about my missing Coke and my newest enemy: Asian Up. Somewhere out there, a little chubby kid had a really hyper Sunday night. I hope he gets caught when he inevitably starts stealing lunch money from his classmates when he reaches elementary school. That kid is a bad apple, and the streets of the South Shore won't be safe for a long time with that brat running around. I hope you all take caution in my sad tale. I'm holding up okay, but I'm still shaken up. Scars like this one are hard to heal, but hopefully I'll be brave enough to leave my apartment in a week or so. Time heals all wounds, I suppose.
Good luck, and God Speed to you all. Keep a careful watch on your sodas and never trust chubby Asian 5 year old boys.
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