Somebody Swiped My Sunday Times!

The Times’ Jake Mooney attempts to define the unique mix of befuddlement, disappointment and pure, unadulterated rage which residents in walkup apartments on busy streets experience when their newspaper is stolen:

If you were driving down Court Street in Cobble Hill some morning last fall, or rushing to catch the F train at the start of your midmorning commute, you might have seen me. I was the one in the blue bathrobe and slippers, darting out the front of my building onto the busy sidewalk to pick up my newspaper before trudging back up the stairs for a bleary-eyed cup of tea and a bowl of cereal.

That was if things went well — and they usually did. Usually the blue plastic bag was leaning against the building, or within arm’s reach, so I could lean out, grab it and duck back inside in one quick motion, avoiding the prospect of darting onto the sidewalk in pajama pants, to the disapproving looks of the elderly women who always picked that moment to walk by.

Some days, though, the scene was altogether different. The bathrobe and I were there, and the old women were there, but the blue bag wasn’t. There was no darting outside on these days, no quick grab and return to a warm apartment. There was me on the sidewalk, rubbing my eyes, scratching my head and wondering: Who took my paper?

Weekend mornings bring a peculiar blend of fatigue and heart-racing stress, the sort of we-are-all-Jack-Bauer-now sensation one feels when the need for immediate, deliberate action is compromised by a lack of sleep:

When people talk about crime in their neighborhood, they always seem to talk about the big things: muggings, stolen cars. But slinking back inside empty-handed and scrounging for a week-old magazine to read with breakfast can ruin your day too, and after a while it will drive you to distraction. On weekends, trying to sleep late, I’d snap awake at the first rays of sun and wonder if I could afford not to bring the paper in. These were the weekend sections, after all, more tempting to thieves, and more annoying to have to replace. Sometimes the decision to go back to sleep was worth it, and other times I was punished with an empty front step a couple of hours later.

Which brings us to Mooney’s inspired idea — staking out his own apartment using the blue plastic home delivery bag as bait. Except he never could wake early enough for the plan to work. (Eventually he simply gave up and moved into a newspaper-safe environment.):

Still, the odds are strong that somewhere in the city, maybe even on my old block, a newspaper has been stolen. Maybe its rightful owner doesn’t even know it is missing, and in an hour or two he will stand half awake, scanning the sidewalk and wondering just what kind of person would take it.

And maybe, just maybe, that person is reading right now. To him, I say this: You have a lot of explaining to do.

A lot of explaining to do? More like, you should be forced to redeliver all my missed papers — ever. You stinking little shit. I will squish you like a bug.

Now that’s how it feels.