What Did I Do to Piss Off the Universe?

I'm leaving my apartment on a sunny Sunday morning—okay, it's more like noon, but I was out the night before until four—on my way to Gigi's for a much-anticipated "Felicity" marathon. I look into my car as I'm unlocking it and notice something odd sitting on the passenger seat. Oh, that's what's odd. It's the passenger window. Broken into 6 million shards of glass. And what else? My stereo. My beloved MP3 player. Gone. Stolen while the Lude sits in the parking lot at my apartment.

I've already spoken to my mother—"Mom, what the HELL do I do about this?" and Gigi—"Dammit, I really need FRIES right now, NOT a broken window. Yeah, fuck it, I'll be there in 15 minutes."—when I see a neighbor emerge from his apartment and stop on the stairs as he drops his bag of trash. Bottles clink to the stairway. "Excuse me!" I call to him, "I'm your neighbor…were you home last night? I mean, my car was broken into—"

"I don't know," he grunts at me. "I've been really sick." He punctuates his statement with a hacking cough, and gathers up his broken trash bag of bottles. Not another word to me, though I'm standing in the parking lot sweeping glass out of the window and trying to tape a trash bag on the window frame. How does one drive like this? How can Binswanger glass be closed? And what the hell is IN that guy's trash? He's been to the dumpster six times already, dragging his what sounds like the end of a serious binge and coughing like a pack-a-day smoker with bronchitis. I feel like telling him maybe if he didn't live in such filth and made more than one trip a month to the dumpster, he might not be so sick.

A few minutes later, I see another neighbor—this one next door to me; she takes extremely long showers—come out of her apartment, get into her car two spaces away from me, and drive away without so much as an "Hey, that blows." Neither of them can think of just ONE word of sympathy? What's up with that?

So, let's see…one car stereo stolen. Thirty CDs stolen. One window broken. All this on top of one flat tire, purchasing four new ones and repairing a clutch. Unrelated to car injuries, you gotta remember the New Year's fight and then, dancing in a club with a stupid boy who pulled me to the floor as he drunkenly fell. Cracked the hell out of my kneecap and probably ruined my favorite pair of pants.

I mean, I think I've been a pretty good girl. Can I catch a fucking break, universe, please?

-Shakira 02.12.03