i wrote this out as well as recorded a video telling the story. . . in the video i do a better job of explaining why i’m telling this story and why i’m telling it twice. . .
The boy who stole my laptop
43.1 the boy who stole my laptop My brother told me years ago about a friend of his who keeps his tech new by buying last year’s tech every few years, selling what he’s got, never paying full price, but always staying current. like paying a fee to upgrade regularly. . . so i bought this laptop last year‘s model of the one i’ve been using since 2018 (which i had bought as a last year’s model. . . after using, for eight years, a friend’s broken laptop i had rehabbed) it was a good upgrade. still under apple-care warranty, and the same price i paid for the one i previously bought. i was happy to buy it sad to discover it had a european spanish keyboard but i figured some way to re-map the keys so it was basically what i’m familiar with to complete the program i just had to sell my 2017 laptop no problem i was going to use Facebook Marketplace and try OfferUp and, last resort, i would use eBay … i checked and there were the same models selling for $800-900 i wanted a thousand i’d see if i could get it i quickly found two things: everyone wants a deal so i raised the price to $1100 so i could give people a discount and still get what i wanted and. . . almost everyone contacting me was a scammer i had watched some youtube videos about tech-nerds and geniuses hunting down the scammers who call and email and text us spam so i did some research and quickly came to understand what these scams were trying to do with me selling my laptop i thought i’d be able to sell it direct cash trade in NYC but i got about 50 scam replies which took me a while to sort through and made me suspicious of everyone else writing me mostly they were writing from profiles of old white people but their english was bad so those who had initiated direct facebook messages instead of going through market place i would occasionally hit the video call button to see if they would pick up a few did though i only saw faces twice some would cover their camera and hang up quickly two black guys sitting at a table in a tropical poverty-style bungalow looking surprised and laughing and commenting on how cool my beard was i’m not sure where in the world they were but i knew i was a rich man compared to them and felt bad about the whole situation but wasn’t interested in being scammed it’s hard for me to fall for scams so i didn’t sell the laptop in NYC i took it back to indiana with me and tried there mostly more of the same but more humans though they mostly were trying to convince me to sell it for $500 which i had no intention of doing one guy started the thread with “I’ll take it” and we chatted a bit it all seemed pretty straight forward his profile said he was a teenager and showed a football player running how could this be a scam? the address he gave me was a public park only 10 minutes from the house the only thing i could imagine would be that he would have a group of people jump me and steal my laptop but i’m not that paranoid so i didn’t let the thought linger we set date and time and i drove over to meet him the next day he was a young guy weedy, thin… frail looking, i would say he reminded me of me when i was a teenager uncomfortable in my own body but he was probably 16 or so and i was like that when i was 11 still i remember wearing a wrist brace my last year of living in indiana and he had one on i felt an affinity with him and spent about an hour talking with him about how a Mac works as he had only ever really worked with a PC he asked a lot of questions and i was happy to answer them but eventually he started acting strangely and shifty and said he hadn’t brought the money with him he needed to walk back to his house to get it i assumed i wouldn’t see him again he walked across the field through a breaker of trees to the subdivision over there and was gone a few minutes but reappeared and after all that he said he felt terrible but just didn’t feel like he could afford it he asked how much i wanted “$1100, right?” and though that was the price i had it listed at it was struck through i had lowered it to $900 and guess he hadn’t noticed that i said he could pay me $1100 if he could afford it but i would accept less still he “hemmed and hawed” as they say and decided he just couldn’t bring himself to pay it what could i do? i said Ok… he walked off i got back in the car and drove home … i looked through the houses i got an idea of where he went people in Indiana are paranoid at least that’s what i think about them scared of everything… whatever that felt bad over the next few days i had a few people say they wanted to buy it only to say the next day that they decided not to and then more low-ball offers i had a friend visit for a few days so had other things to think of but shortly after my friend left this kid wrote me again and decided he wanted the laptop “for real this time” and no other offer had materialized and it was a short drive so i agreed to meet him the next day same place same time as before but i was working in the garden that afternoon and totally forgot about our meeting when i came back in i saw a message from him asking him if i would be meeting him and i responded that i was sorry i had missed our meeting but would be happy to drive over now as it is so close he said he might be able to sneak out and grab it after his parents went to sleep or at least went upstairs … ok so he was buying this without them knowing i guess that’s more to be worried about right? i just told him to let me know if he wanted me to come out tonight or tomorrow and went about my evening i later got a message from him saying around 11:15 would be good so when 11 came around i packed up and got in the car and sent him a message telling him i was on my way we met in the dark in this unlit park empty sports fields weedy little kid and me after i shaved my beard off … he didn’t comment on noticing the difference again, though, he asked tons of questions and i was happy to answer them but after about 45 minutes midnight i said “ok, now’s the time, you’ve got buy it… you said you would… you can ask me any questions you want through the net… or google them, but it’s getting on … “ and he started acting shifty again breathing quickly like an asthmatic and he started pacing he said “oh man, i don’t want to do this to you again.. oh man, i’m sorry, i can’t do this to you again… i feel… ok, give me a minute, i just have to walk a moment” and he walked off into the darkness of course right so i wouldn’t see him again but he came back and stood next to me i was sitting on some risers looking out over the soccer field he stood there shuffled his feet and grabbed the computer and dashed saying “sorry man” my mind had no thoughts i just leapt to my feet and gave chase now i was wearing my sandals not looped around my ankles so they fell off after the first few steps i kept running and i’m not much of a runner i was always winded easily when i was younger in these running sports though i had to play all of them and a few months ago i hurt my left ankle badly and could hardly walk for a month it took two months before i no longer felt the pain and that was only a month behind me now and being here in indiana something had happened to my right ankle in 2019 often hurting so i’ve been thinking of my ankles as Weak in recent years but not tonight no thinking i was just running i did notice the sensation of the pavement under my feet and noticed i did not step on anything sharp and i noticed the sensation of running the clear drive of purpose … i wasn’t gonna let that kid get away with $1000 some weedy suburban kid it just wasn’t going to happen i could feel the muscles in my legs and back could feel the heat and strength driving me through the night could see his body quite a ways away he had got a good head start on me he ran out of the parking lot along the sidewalk and i was gaining on him very quickly i wasn’t shouting at him he knew i was there and as the sidewalk was coming to an end (because sidewalks in suburban no-wheres go nowhere) he squealed and yelped and said “oh, i’m sorry man, i’m sorry i’m sorry, here’s your laptop” and gently set it down in the grass by the side of the pavement where i stopped and did not even follow his trajectory with my eyes i just picked up the laptop and turned around and walked back to the car feeling the warmth of the blacktop under my bare feet feeling my heart and breath pumping in my body this feeling of Life what a gift to know even in my weakness injured recovered and because of it 15 pounds heavier than i’ve ever been i could run down a teenager a nerd, yes but at 42… nearly 43… this body could run him down i’ve done an ok job taking care of this body even when it feels like it’s sliding… what a gift yet the adrenalin also drove me to swiftly pick up my sandals get in the car roll up the windows lock the doors and drive out of there as quickly as i could and even before i got to the first intersection i went to our messenger conversation and left it then blocked him there and at facebook i didn’t want to hear anything he had to say after that … when i told friends about this experience they all said they would have left the laptop and caught him and left some bruises or broken his nose or ribs or something but i know that kid i know what an insecure mess he is how tortured he is in himself i didn’t need to hurt him he hurt himself enough showing himself that he was a thief and a bad one at that that’s enough i wouldn’t want to live knowing that i hurt him having to hurt him using my strength to hurt someone weaker than i chasing him down was conquest enough for me and the actuality of the experience was punishment enough for him is this maturity? this is all what it’s like to Age consciousness folding and flowing through time creases and shapes…


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