An open letter

by Brian Clarey

To the guy who ransacked my car this weekend:

I knew you came by because my car looked even worse than usual, and the contents of the glove box were spread all over the passenger seat. Were it not for that, I likely wouldn’t have even noticed.

First off, I’d like to apologize for the mess. I spend a lot of time in my car, as you can probably tell by all the empty water bottles and dead lighters.

I’ve really been meaning to clean it, but you know how it goes.

There are also, as I’m sure you noticed, piles of old newspapers that are past their expiration date. Collectively, those are probably the most valuable thing in the car, fetching $40 a ton from the recycling center, or so I’ve heard.

I must applaud your diligence in ransacking my jacked-up car despite the layers of detritus throughout the vehicle. Perhaps you thought my mess a clever camouflage for, I don’t know, a leather satchel full of watches or an envelope full of $2 bills or something. Maybe you interpreted the fact that the car was not locked as further evidence of treasure therein.

I have to tell you, that’s a terrible read, dude. I assume you’re a dude because every single woman I’ve ever seen look into the rolling landfill that I drive responds with barely concealed disgust.

I must also apologize for the disappointment you must have felt when after all your efforts — I estimate it must have taken at least 10 minutes to go through all that junk — the only thing even remotely valuable to find in there was a DVD player that hasn’t worked since 2007. And I suppose I should thank you for not hurling the defective player through my windshield, which I admit I was tempted to do several times in the days before it broke for good.

It broke, by the way, when one of my children shoved a bunch of coins in it for the third time, which means there may have been a couple of quarters jammed up in there had you taken the initiative to steal it. Sucka.

Also, I want to tell you that you suck at robbing cars. You’d have been better off rooting around a dumpster behind a restaurant — at least that way you might have found something to eat.