Friday, August 13, 2010

Strangest break-in attempt ever

I needed to do some painting, so I needed to leave the 50-degree fog belt and find someplace with less than 50% humidity and temperatures over 70 degrees. So I ventured out to the way far white-bread rich distant reaches of the bay area, where the wealthy lead sheltered lives amidst their million-dollar 1960's Eichler tract houses.

Parked happily (and quietly and safely) in the hills, I'd left my driver's side door unlocked. Around dinnertime, and just before dusk, two pre-teenage girls skipped past my truck, then stopped. And whispered to each other. Then one opened my door, and climbed into my cab, while the other took a picture! Then they ran off down the hill, giggling.

I was a more than a little stunned that those young girls should had absolutely no fear at all. They saw a big white truck, and thought it was something to play with. They obviously live an innocent, shelterd life so completely homogenized, so completely devoid of any crime or danger, that they saw nothing to fear, and decided to play instead. It was completely opposite reaction to what people in middle-class suburban areas closer to the city have: they're damned paranoids, and they eye me warily or even call the cops on me.

It was similar to the level of acceptance and lack of fear I get in rural areas, or in working-class suburbs: just a big work truck, nothing to see here.

But there was a different element to this, one which concerned and annoyed me: not only in their innocence, but also their arrogance. This wasn't their truck. They had no right to be in it. Where did they get the idea that they could just jjump into other people's vehicles? Maybe everything on their block is so safe and they all just share stuff, so this is no big deal to them. But I doubt that. More likely, there was a rich person's arrogance, that an obviously working-class person's truck is just not to be taken seriously. A kind of "let them eat cake" attitude, like my truck was just a peice of junk left on the sidewalk for others to pick up and do with what they will.

I got a bit worried because of this, and I was concerned that their teenage brothers might come around with spraypaint and demonstrate their sense of entitlement in that way. But no, I made it through the night quite safely and happily. Alas, the fog followed me, so the next morning it was just as foggy here as by the ocean. I kept driving and eventually found an even sunnier spot.

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