Connor Fieldman Boals

My year in New York was wonderful. Unforgettable. Life-changing, etc.

But we all knew that was how it would go.

This post is not to reminisce on New York, but to explain my drought in blog posts with a story.

I was robbed on my last night in New York City.

I left the house around 7 p.m., to take the subway downtown to Madison Square Park for some Shake Shack and last-night-in-NYC farewells.

It was a pleasant night with some really wonderful people. I made it back uptown to my apartment around 3 a.m.. I turned the lock on my door, pushed it open, then “Thud.”

The door wouldn’t open. My roommate had somehow left the chain on the door when he left for his evening of gallivanting.

Why would he do that? So I cursed his name and called him up to ask him.

He said he did no such thing.

It must have been the new tenant, I thought. She had stopped by the day before to measure the rooms. Maybe, she had started her move early and chained us out.

Remembering that the window was most likely open, I went back out and scaled the fence of the playground that borders our apartment. From inside the playground, I could see one of the windows on our first-floor apartment propped open with the familiar piece of wood.

Can you see where this is going? I still had no clue at this point.

So, still feeling agile and ninja-like, I climbed the fence from the playground to the side of our building, shimmied down and wiggled in through the window.

I unchained the door, cursed my silly roommate, then headed to my room.

Now, I have some of the best friends in the world and as I was out celebrating my last night, they were in the process of driving from Michigan through the night to move me out in the morning.

To be as prepared as possible, I had disassembled and packed everything I owned into a nice central pile, awaiting their arrival.

All that was left in my room was a mattress, a dresser and a desk.

I flipped on my bedroom light and noticed one of my duffel bag sitting precariously on my bed. Its contents were strewn out over the mattress.

My dresser drawers were pulled open. Weird. So were my desk drawers.

And where was my computer?

Yup, folks. I was the victim of a robbery.

All in all, they took:

- One 17-inch Macbook Pro
- Two hard drives containing all the media work I had done over the semester
- A point-and-shoot digital camera
- A flip camera
- iPod
- Every charger I owned, including ones to things they didn’t steal (like my cell phone)
- My favorite backpack, which contained my favorite chapstick

The insurance company estimated the thieves made off with $3800 in merch.

Obviously, it was really expensive chapstick.

Then, I had my first negative experience with the police. Apparently the NYPD doesn’t staff the night shift with the older, more considerate officers. They use the young guys, fresh out of the academy who just want to argue with you and dispute what you saw. Luckily, my roommate came home to drunkenly argue theories of robberies with them and allow me to wallow in self-pity, while officer A’s partner incorrectly took down my address, phone number and name.

I spent the rest of the night laying on the floor, watching the sun rise, because I was told not to touch “the crime scene.”

The evidence collection team, who was supposed to come at 6 a.m., arrived around noon, brushed the window sills, gave me a report and hit the road. To their credit, they couldn’t find me because they were given the wrong address. When they arrived, they were incredibly pleasant, almost negating the impression set by their comrades earlier in the morning.

So that’s my story. I got robbed. I didn’t have a computer for a month, thus no blogging.

But the moral of the story is that I have one now. And you know what it cost me? Nothing.

Well, $100 for the year of renter’s insurance. But, obviously that was worth it.

So, if you rent, call your insurance agent. $100 may seem like a lot of money. But $3800 is a lot more. It’s super cheap and if nothing happens, it will be the best $100 you ever wasted. Seriously, do it. I’m broke. I did it. It was obviously worth it. I used State Farm, so I’d recommend you start there.

Now, I’m back on the interwebs. I’ve got a month’s worth of posting to catch up on.