A friendly reminder

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

(Perhaps only pertinent to diesel_cafe, but I think it's of enough more general use to be worth posting here.)

Earlier this week I saw an altercation, fortunately with a peaceful ending, at the Diesel, the gist of which was: he was walking towards the front with her laptop and backpack; she stopped him and took it back; he said his girlfriend asked him to get her stuff from the table in the back and he'd thought this was it; she told him he was wrong.

Truth or lie, accident or theivery, I don't know or care, but I do want to remind people: watch your stuff. If someone had taken the stuff intentionally, and if the owner had happened to be in the bathroom at the time, the person could have easily left with no one the wiser. (Or if someone had simply taken the laptop and put it into their own bag, they could have walked right past the owner without her noticing.)

I firmly believe that Davis is a law-abiding and friendly place whose occupants would never steal; but accidents happen, and miscreants may come in from Harvard or Porter Squares, which are as everyone knows populated entirely by criminals who put iocane powder into people's coffee.

Anyway, just a reminder.

Comments

[shinxy.livejournal.com]

You amuse me. Davis is just as crime-ridden as any other square. Which is to say, not very, but to the extent that you have to be careful.

What's more, people that hang out at Diesel are easy targets because they often have nice laptops with them, but are socializing and distracted.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

My sarcasm-meter was going off, just a little bit there.

[somesuch.livejournal.com]

Wonderful icon!

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Please, please, I'm trying to cling to my rose-colored glasses here.

No, in all seriousness, I know that there's crime in Davis; I've heard of laptops being stolen from the Diesel before. The penultimate paragraph was just a way of saying "...but none of you readers, of course, you'd never steal anything."

Myself, I always hibernate my laptop and carry it to the bathroom, or the counter when getting coffee. I've even taking to chaining my bag to the nearest metal bar (not a hard process--and not hard to undo, but it makes it impossible for someone to casually walk off with it). Once my computer isn't in it, anyone who takes my bag is getting away with two pens, a pencil badly in need of sharpening, and photocopies of three or four academic papers from the 1980s, so I don't feel the need to watch it with the same constant vigilance.

[venusunder.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I've spent the last few years building up a resistance to iocaine powder. Those Porterites will be none the wiser!

[simply-juniper.livejournal.com]

Hehe!

[prog.livejournal.com]

I actually don't understand people who leave their laptops behind for any length of time at all, like tucking them under an arm is just not an option. I mean, they can't all have dead batteries, right?

I guess there's a stigma against taking one's computer into the bathroom, still. At least when there's people to see, anyway.

Let's start a clever sticker campaign to increase awareness that the marriage of laptops with potties is a-ok with us.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

but with the wireless network, that means they might spend way too long in there. "hurry up!" "sorry, i was in the middle of this lj quiz..."

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

somehow, I don't think LJ quizzes are what they're going to be doing on a laptop in the bathroom.

After all, we all know what the internet is for....

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I think the question people are grappling with is: "Which is more valuable, the laptop, or a seat at a booth?" If the laptop is nicked, insurance might replace it, but if you don't appear to be occupying your booth while you're in the loo, it might be months before you get a seat again.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Aha, that is why you carry around some highly visible token you should leave to mark a place as yours. It should be both not mistakable as trash (not a newspaper or an empty bottle), but also not tempting to thieves. A book works well for this.

[ellf.livejournal.com]

I noticed the same altercation -- the two bags looked very similar, and the chick who had her bag almost walked off with "resolved" the issue by screaming, "What the fuck are you doing?" repeatedly.

In all honesty, I was more concerned that -she- was going to cause a problem than the guy who looked at the grey-blue bag he was carrying, realized it was the wrong one, and tried to apologize, only to be yelled at again.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Well--yes. That's a much more accurate description of what happened. Out of fairness to her, I couldn't tell how similar the bags actually were; and if I saw someone walking off with my computer, I'd likely be screaming "What the fuck are you doing?" too, innocent mistake or otherwise.

[ellf.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the initial yell that caught my attention. It was the repeated yells, drowning out the kid's attempt to explain and turning heads to see when this chick was going to start swinging that did.

My point wasn't to correct you, though -- it was to suggest that short tempers are of more concern than thievery. Accidents, especially of this sort, do happen, and assuming a mix of paranoia and rage doesn't resolve them.