thefty shopping

Have you ever stole anything? Better yet, have you ever had anything stolen from you by a complete stranger? I'm not talking about your sibling nabbing something from your closet, I'm talking gone for good. I've never stolen anything but last year my leather jacket was swiped from me while out in the city. Now I take responsibility for not checking my coat at check-in but I was less than 10 feet from it the entire night and have definitely been more careless a million times before. The thing about this jacket was it was the first big purchase that  I made entirely for myself when I moved to Manhattan. I saved up all my birthday money and cut way back to buy this thing. It meant something to me. It was a "I'm-23-in-fucking-manhattan-hear-me-roar" piece. I loved it. I wore it constantly. It was the second favorite thing I've ever owned (the first being a gold bracelet from December 1986 engraved with 'Toni' that still fits me). I cried. Hard. It floors me to this day that someone would take something that didn't belong to them. I tried to think that they really needed that jacket or maybe it really was a mistake but it was never returned to the restaurant/club/bar and therefore I believe now that they did it on purpose. This weekend I semi-replaced that jacket with a new one. It's similar and I'm sure I'll grow to love it but I have a feeling that I won't be as attached to it as I was my last one. I'm trying to think of it as my "I'm-25-just-landed-my-dream-job-and-still-loving-manhattan" jacket but it doesn't have the same ring to it. As we've been over before, I believe in karma so who knows where the person who swiped my jacket ends up. In the meantime, I'll be breaking in my new edition.