Snarkastic

It's like the internet came to life.

So I've lived in L.A. for going on three years and nothing bad has ever happened to me. I've never so much as had my car keyed. About a month ago I got harassed by some guys on the subway, then a couple weeks ago some other guy tried to sit on my lap on the train. But that's it. No harm, no real danger, ever.

And that's still true, but man, yesterday was a crrrreeepshow. On my way home from the pool some punk-ass kid (maybe 17, maybe) started following me on his bike, TAKING PICTURES OF ME ON HIS PHONE. This went on for about five blocks, and I was intent on ignoring him. Then, across the street from my building, he tried to take my bag. Which is about when I grabbed his backpack and tried to take a picture of HIM with MY phone, and he rode off. I chased after him for about half a block, much to the delight of my neighbor Laurence, who saw the whole thing from across the street. (Holly: "WHY DIDN'T YOU DO SOMETHING?" Laurence: "Hey, you looked like the aggressor to me.") I'd like to think I would've kicked his ass if I'd caught him, but he was on bike and I was wearing flip-flops.

This whole thing happened RIGHT underneath a security camera for a very large bank, who won't let us look at their tape to see if they got the guy on film. The purple shirts were very sweet about the whole thing, and just as skeeved out about the picture-taking as I was. (The attempted robbery doesn't really bother me, actually. The photos...yeeeesh.)

So that's it. Reports filed, cousin who was on the phone with me almost the whole time bribed to not call my parents, etc. I guess you could argue I was due, after all this time living here incident-free. I'm just trying to figure out how I can leverage this into Miz Naincy finally letting my uncle get me a gun for Christmas.* Yeehaw!

*No, not really. (Maybe.) Also, I was coming from the pool and wouldn't have had it with me even if I had one. That's the best part: I had nothing worth taking in there. If that kid had gotten my bag he would've made off with...my keys, towel, and Steele magazine (so that's why I fought back!).

Posted by Nastinchka at June 20, 2009 08:14 AM