I never even named the panda

6/1/99

I plopped down in the seat of my car today and paused for a moment, making sure I had enough time to gas up before driving out to teach. I noticed, from the corner of my eye, that the glove compartment was hanging open. And empty.

----[God. Would I even have known if I’d been wearing my glasses instead of contacts? No peripheral.... I wouldn’t have gotten it until I went to push the tape into the player....]

My black corkscrew sat, alone, on a folded map of Chicago. My eyes flicked down to the floor, where the former contents of my glove compartment lay strewn about. A minute shift of my head and I saw that the striped cotton beach pants and the tank top that I’d left on the passenger seat were balled up on the floor.

I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head and glanced at the back seat. My moving boxes and bubble wrap had been moved. And then....

oh god oh god oh god

I popped the trunk and, trance-like, stepped from the car. Felt my stomach drop, then rise up as I walked to the rear of my violated Escort.

My euphonium, trombone, and briefcase were untouched. Safe. My life is intact. Whoever broke into my car was too rushed, or too dumb, to check the trunk. God, my euph is worth over $6000, the trombone is another 8 or 9 hundred, and the music back there is a few hundred.

I tiptoed (don’t ask, I don’t know) back to the driver’s side and stood, staring dumbly at the ground. My nail clipper lay right next to the car. I could see into the backseat – a box of tapes, books, and paraphernalia had been overturned and rifled through. Dazedly, I called John and told him how lucky I got.

A few minutes later I called him again, whining this time: “They took my Cake tape!!”

I ensured that my checkbook was still in the house. God, I leave my checkbook in the car sometimes, I leave my wallet there sometimes. What if they had seen my horn? I’m so stupid. Leaving the doors unlocked so they won’t break the windows and then leaving my freaking Willson in the trunk.

Halfway to Charlotte I realized they’d stolen my little stuffed panda bear, the one who dangled from the mirror or the tuning dial. Now this is pure malice.

Reminded me of my sophomore year in high school, when Manda and I shared a locker with a broken combination. Just bang-and-pull. Some asshole stole everything we had in there, all year long. I went through seven scientific calculators that year. Manda’d had a plastic coin bank where we kept loose change—that was the first to go. And we had a little family of stuffed bears living on the floor of the locker.

The first bear was named Trenton—we’d rescued him from the edge of a lawn on Trenton Drive; he was soaked from a recent rainstorm. We moved him in and then added a girlfriend-bear and a few baby bears. (We were 15, give us a break.) All stolen. No possible profit—just sheer meanness.

The person who messed up my car was looking for a phone—dug through all my boxes and compartments, under the seats. Didn’t find my extreme valuables in the trunk. And stole my toys. Tapes and a goddamn stuffed bear.

And in all the confusion, I forgot to drive out and drop off my rent before 5. Damn it all. And my last two students didn’t show up, so I sat around waiting for an extra 45 minutes and then just had to pack up and go home.

Good thing: when I drove out to Bath to leave my rent check, the moon was big and orange, hanging low over Park Lake. I stopped in Haslett to talk to my friend Ken, who works the midnight shift at my old grocery store. Once in a while, I miss living in Haslett. This tiny town propped between two lakes, in a low wetland area, it’s steamy and hazy on summer nights. I used to go to work at dawn, the fog lifting and settling, swirling around the parking lot, and smelling of fresh, greasy doughnuts.