Went to Queen Anne to code yesterday. Queen Anne only because it is a neighborhood in Seattle I usually try to avoid.
All locally-owned coffee shops were too busy and Starbucks had several tables adjacent electrical outlets. Taking one for the team–the team being me and my laptop–I stayed.
[Statement here about clientele exactly fitting my constructed Starbucks-customer stereotype (i.e. self-absorbed, overpaid, “professionals”) and how background music was selected to be noticeable but not offending to the privileged-liberal ear.]
Setting up at a table beside a window beside the sidewalk beside an important Queen Anne arterial, a glint of light strafed my eye. Tiny blue cubes bounced on the sidewalk outside. Looking up I see the lower half of a man’s body, his upper half bent over inside the newly-formed passenger side cavity of a late model SUV. A half second later he emerged and jumped into the backseat of a blue Volvo waiting in the next parking space. It sped off, traffic miraculously absent.
The vehicle’s owner, Starbucks-frequenter-extraordinaire, materialized from the cafe, vanilla latte in hand, let out a whoop, and promptly called the cops (via an iPhone of some random gawker-samaritan happening by). Two cops, complete with semi-automatic handguns, billy clubs, mace and many other beltable tools, arrived on their nifty bikes.
Cops and female victim swept up the autoglass into a 2 quart cardboard Starbucks Coffee-On-the-Go® container. Statements were made and taken. Eavesdropping revealed the woman’s purse was stolen though I could see her fat card-containing wallet in hand; she obviously had to pay for her latte.
She drove off, probably in search of an autoglass shop. The whole episode probably not much more than an inconvenience for her I’m sure.
If anyone has disdain for “sanctity of property”, and other bullshit along those lines, it is I. Still, those crooks were seasoned thieves. They could be using their able bodies to work, not rippin’-and-runnin’. Pissed me off it did.
Perhaps middle age conservatism is starting to set in.
