Be cool; be smart

On October 31st at my beloved university I was robbed of my handbag and of course its contents: debit card, credit cards, driver's license and social security card. I also lost my university office door key and my university ID. At least we can change the lock. No, I wasn't mugged; this was just a careless leaving of my handbag in a room that appeared to be safe. NOT!

The bottom line is this: my good friend Heidi, who once had her car stolen and her apartment ransacked in Manhattan, all in the space of under two years, calls thefts like these paying the "vermin tax"---the high cost of living in urban areas, in melting pots, in cities whose socioeconomics vary from A to Z in any given neighborhood.Sooner or later there will be something to remind you you're not in Kansas anymore. Perhaps this seemed more true in the 1980s when she suffered her losses and the drug epidemic in New York City left everyday people on the street extremely vulnerable.

For me, the vermin tax is very like the IRS. Be careful, or the things you forget to remember will be summoned one day in an audit.

We all live every day with risk. I frankly hate the thought of my identity being stolen, far more than the inconvenience of canceling credit cards and getting my cash back for the $2000 heist the thief got to by cracking my pin number at the ATM within twenty minutes of the theft. But my bigger question is that of character: What can I do with this now? I can take a stand to not be afraid, to not look over my shoulder, to not draw conclusions of stereotype about the possible thief or thieves. I can commit to keeping my mind open in my wordlview: the universe is far more benevolent than malevolent. All that any of us can glean from adversity is its lessons, most importantly without blame in any direction.

Of course, I didn't need to carry around my social security number, but I did. End of story. We have laws in place against thievery, but robberies like this one are too commonplace and too numerous in big cities to ever be solved. End of story. I still have my life, my heart and my optimism. That's a prize no one can steal.