I hate people

I could have written a post tonight about my friend's lovely wedding yesterday, about the end of a relationship, or about Manchester United's fantastic win over Newcastle today. I could have written about getting to work today and finding that Mitt Romney's coming to town, so my planned work day was completely shot while I had to scramble for the story, or about how my boss actually said "good job" to me about something. I even could have written about how the first freeze of the year is due to hit tonight and as of last night, my furnace doesn't seem to work anymore, so the house is quite frigid. But no. I got home from work, after stopping at the store for new furnace filters, and parked in my own driveway. I took in one armload full of things from the car and scampered about for five or ten minutes in the house before running back out to the car, parked in my own driveway and retrieving the rest of the things I needed to take in - only to look up and see that my GPS unit has been stolen. I live on a cul-de-sac. In a village of 600 people. And my GPS has been stolen from my car left unattended in my own driveway for only five or ten minutes. I hate people. I think about what kind of a person would do something like this. He can see from the car I drive (a 14-year-old Honda with 211k miles on it), from the place I live (one of a four-unit building), from any number of clues inside the car, that I probably don't have things any better in life than he does. Does this matter? No. He takes my GPS, which I need for my pathetic job at which I've gotten no pay rises in 10 years, and for my daughter's activities that have me driving all over the state in the coming months. Does this matter? Is this a consideration at all? Of course not. Other people don't matter to these people - ever. Are these things even all that valuable in the stolen goods market? No. They're only $100 or less retail. So for the $10 or $20 bucks you'll get - or maybe an eighth of pot or a few pills, he'll gladly put me out a hundred bucks that I clearly cannot spare in order to replace it. All because I thought I could leave my car unattended in my own driveway for a few minutes. The kind of person who does this sort of thing - yeah, I know people like that. I married - and very happily divorced - a person like this. A person who thinks of no one but himself. Quite simply a bad person. A pathetic example of a human being. And more often than not,someone who is quite proud to be like this. I know these people. They'll laugh about it. "Check out what I got!" Would they ever for a single moment think, "Check out what someone else lost. What someone else needed and couldn't afford to replace. What's going to cost them far more than it's ever going to profit me." No. They won't. Not for a single moment. They laugh about it and take pride in it. I know people like this. And there are far too many of them. And they have too much power in the world, because they are willing to cross those lines that decent people don't cross.