Today I Cried

I'm not a crier. In fact, I do not recall the last time I cried. BUT today I cried because I was violated and an injustice occurred.

I was doing laundry in the laundry room attached to the garage of my apartment building. The machines are coin-operated so I keep a jar of quarters so that I have enough money to do my laundry. I usually keep the quarters in the laundry room when I'm doing laundry because it's (what I thought was) a safe location because no one knows it's there unless you live here. Plus, no one just "passes" by our driveway because it's sort of hidden thus we really don't have transients coming over.

Well, I walk outside to put in another batch of laundry and there are these two guys from what we'll refer to as Beetle's Plumbing. They doing something or other and have a hose attached in the laundry room. They tell me, "hey, it's probably not a good idea to do laundry right now because that room is flooded" and I say, "okay-- but I currently have laundry in the washer. I hope that's not a problem." and go back up to my apartment.

A few minutes later one of the plumbers (a heavier set white guy) knocks on my door and I open it. He says they're done and I can go back and do my laundry again... oh, and that there was some "big black guy" hanging around and there was a jar of quarters in the laundry room and he doesn't know if it's for the big black guy or me, but anyway, i can do laundry again. It was so bizarre, this conversation. He kept saying, "i don't know whose money that was", etc. Plus, I never saw a "big black guy" hanging out around here. In fact, he said he thought he was our "maintenance man" because this "big black guy" showed him that the laundry room was flooded.

This struck me as odd because: a) people don't usually just "hang around" here because they don't know this exists. b) if someone was just "passing through" how the EFF did they find the laundry room with the closed door that no one knows about except the tenants and c) this is exactly what someone would say to deflect a crime off of themselves, wouldn't it?

Well, the plumbers left and I went to check on my laundry--- and what do you know: at least $20 of my quarters are missing. I know this because I had a few rolls of quarters in that jar. I know, it was stupid of me to leave my quarters in there but I sincerely believed it to be safe since it's sort of a hidden place.

I called my landlady and she said she'd call Beetle's Plumbing to report the incident. I called Vijay and started to cry because I felt so violated. I'm not a very trusting person and I consider myself very careful to not be a victim of theft, so this violation hit me where it hurts. Plus, these are plumbers who have COME INTO MY HOME! And they go into other peoples' homes on a regular basis. PLUS some white dude blamed this on a possibly fictitious "big black guy". Give big black guys a break, man. Stop blaming all of these self-committed crimes on big black guys!

So, I decided that I, too, needed to call Beetle's plumbing because if there is in fact some "big black guy" hanging around here, we need a description of him so that we can be sure to maintain our safety relative to transients. I'm waiting for Mr. Beetle to call me back so I can discuss this matter with him in a dignified way. I'm going to say that I have heard great things about how trustworthy his workers are, but that this situation is a bit suspicious. Also, if in fact there was some "big black guy" hanging around here who shows extra concern for our laundry room maintenance then we need to know about it. I don't want to be super offensive with him, but I don't want this to happen to anyone else... or for anymore big black guys to be falsely accused of crimes by plumbers.