Burglar King

I’ve written before about how loath I am to part with my spare change. I love my change all out of proportion to its monetary value. O noble quarter! Giver of clean laundry and lifeblood of parking meters! O dimes, nickels and pennies, fodder for a future Coinstar check! I even love 50-cent pieces and Canadian money, those ostracized bastards of the coin community. Thus I find it extremely upsetting that someone keeps kicking in the door to my apartment and stealing my change.

That’s right, I have a change thief. The first time this happened, I came home to find my apartment door forced open, the frame in splinters. I feared the worst, but the PlayStation was still there, thank God. A quick spin around the apartment confirmed that nothing seemed to be missing—nothing, that is, except my cache of hard-earned change, which had resided in a bowl atop my dresser. The bowl was still there, but it was denuded of its shiny bounty. I threw my hands toward the heavens, sank to my knees and bellowed “Nooooooooo!” It had taken me a long time to fill that bowl. Like the accumulation of nutrient-rich sediment that formed the Nile delta, it was a long and beautiful process. How many times had I said, “Sorry, don’t have any,” when bums had asked for that change? How many coffee-shop tip jars had gone unfilled? My unborn childrens’ college fund was reset to zero. My laundry would wait another month.

Roommates Scott and Lance took stock of their belongings and found similar scenarios. Still, we thought it necessary to file a police report, and in short order a Boston cop was in our apartment surveying the damage. He told us we were lucky that we hadn’t been burglarized sooner, since our door is so flimsy that a determined toddler could break into our apartment with a Fisher-Price My First Crowbar. We resolved to bulk up security, and to that end had a metal plate installed where the doorknob engages the frame. Total Panic Room, yo.

After a few weeks I forgot about our unwanted visitor and began happily restocking my change bowl. It was just starting to return to respectable levels when I came home to find the door kicked in once again, our metal door-frame sheath popped out of the frame with apparent ease. I went straight to my room and found my coin collection pillaged anew.

While my serial change plunderer once again made off with every penny, I was more perplexed at what he didn’t steal, given that he’d just cased the joint a few weeks earlier: the TV, the surround-sound system, my “Take me drunk, I’m home” T-shirt, Lance’s air purifier, Lance, a Tiffany money clip, Scott’s old laptop computer or the spare keys to the apartment. Granted, I suppose staggering down the street with a 32-inch TV on your back would be a bit conspicuous, but he didn’t even bother to grab a DVD or two while he was visiting. Is it that hard to fence a Jumanji DVD? OK, bad example.

I became quite dismayed after this second break-in. Despite the fact that I’d been relieved of only about $30, it’s unsettling to know that your apartment enjoys less security than a Mariah Carey CD at Sam Goody. If it happened twice, it would probably happen again, and I was powerless to prevent it. Maybe I could just place my change bowl in the hallway outside our door, with a note saying, “If you are in this hallway and thinking about kicking in this door to steal some change, please help yourself. No need to get all crazy.” Or maybe I could hire a neighborhood boy to live in my apartment when I’m not home and thwart the thief with clever and hilarious booby traps. Or maybe the best solution is one that will soon come to pass: moving to a whole new apartment.

Yep, Scott and I are movin’ on up, and Lance is inheriting our apartment. Unfortunately for Lance and the two roommates he’s lined up, nearly every item in the apartment belongs to Scott or me: the couch, the TV, the stereo and DVD player, the kitchen chairs; the coffee table, microwave, Foreman Grill and toaster oven; the coffeemaker, and all the pots and pans, dishes and silverware. We don’t want to yank the rug out from under him, but we probably will since we’re taking that too.

If our thieving friend visits again, all he’ll likely find is Lance, sitting on the floor eating beef jerky and listening to his clock-radio. And that will not quite be the change he was looking for. ∂