All the self-defense classes I kept forgetting to take did not come in handy Saturday night when I was forcibly divested of my laptop and phone in the Vietnamese Memorial park as I walked home late.
I make it a general rule not to carry my laptop around at night, but unfortunately, late hours on a laptop are my only means of chatting with people in other countries. I digress.
In case you want to know what it actually feels like to get robbed, read my blow by blow account below:
I was walking home, minding my own business, feeling perfectly calm, when a giant arm suddenly grabbed my head from behind. This didn't alarm me so much as it utterly confused me. It was not violent or unfriendly, it almost felt like someone was playing a joke on me. Lacking samurai training, I did not have the intelligence or common sense to duck, to punch the guy who was doing it, to knife him with my key, or to turn on him and scream something catchy, like, "That's my purse! I DON'T KNOW YOU!". I was just utterly WTF??
Then a second guy grabbed my bag from behind. Him, I did fight with, but only so much as was possible with the first guy bear hugging me into submission. I somehow wound up face-down on the ground, holding my bag like my life depended on it. I honestly don't remember if they forced me down, or if I fell in the struggle. I also can't remember what stopped me from grabbing my bag with both arms--if the first guy was holding me down, or if I was just that fucking stupid. I may have frozen up.
The man grabbing my bag proceeded to pull it off my arm so hard that the strap broke, leaving me with pretty much the bloodiest, ooziest rug burn you've seen in your life, all over my arm and underarm. He then punched me in the side, which, given that he was a coward and utter wimp, didn't even hurt (or even leave a bruise).
Picking myself up off the ground, I proceeded to chase them, enraged to a barbaric degree. I was going to kill them, I really was. I mean physically beat the shit out of them...somehow. I'd have gouged their eyes out with the metal point of my umbrella, anyway. Or something. OK, being a five-seven, 110 pound female with health issues, I probably would have come off the worst in that fight--but I am prone delusions of invincibility and fully intended to unleash my wrath on them.
But, my thyroid-wracked legs weren't really any match for those of hardened criminals, and they got away with my laptop and cell phone. A tuk tuk driver found me, and not understanding my pleas for help, took me to the nearest bar, where a random expat met me and tried to calm me down (which wasn't possible at that point).
She gave me $20 and gave me a lift home, and recommended I contact my embassy. At home, I promptly destroyed everything made of glass in my house with my unbloody umbrella, such was my unchanneled rage. Then I proceed to go on a 6 hour rant off my balcony, at the top of my lungs, about the evils of Cambodian society. I sounded like Moammar fucking Qaddafi--challenging the powers that be like a lunatic. Now all the neighbors hate me, which is fine, because I hate all of them.
But let me recount why I was so angry. Not just the violation--I've lost everything I valued in life. My ENTIRE LIFE was on my computer. If they'd burned down my house and everything I physically owned, it wouldn't have been half as devastating to me. That's not an exaggeration.
Here's why it sucks:
My cellphone--
- was from Dubai and could write in multiple languages, including Farsi and Arabic
- had my photo of me with Sheikh Mohammed
- had all the contacts I've accrued since 2007
- had an ornament that a student of mine gave me
- had recorded music
It's a beat-up piece of shit, complete with holes where you can see into the internal components, and it had no value to anyone except me.
My computer contained--
- photographs dating back to 2008, including personal ones and detailed photos of all my world travels
- everything I've ever downloaded
- my music
- all my Chinese lessons
- all my Khmer lessons
- my copies of passport photos
- my resume
- all my created artwork
- all the blog entries I was going to post (like the one I was illustrating about dengue fever that now you will never read)
- my private journal
- my stories I was going to publish
- all my personality theory work (some of which was expensively gotten)
- several online books
- my collection of awesome images I'd found online
- the passwords to all my accounts
- lots of embarrassing personal details
- my internet access
- my access to everything in the world, including my ability to easily apply for a job in Japan (my projected next move)
- my local bank account
What I was most depressed about is that no one else seemed to care about this. To me, my life is over. I am ruined. I've lost my family, my health, my wealth, my country, my place of residence, my future, and now the only object that I vested anything in and had anything I remotely cared about. It's as though they robbed me of my very soul.
Worse, it's going to be sold for $50, memory wiped clean, and be sold at a huge markup to some spoiled brat. My entire life, all my memories, my hopes and dreams, everything I valued and cared for in this world--worth a beating and $50.
I can only be grateful of two things--
- I didn't get raped
- I didn't get killed
-I can't even be grateful that I wasn't hurt, cause I'd honestly rather still be in possession of my computer even if I had some cuts, bruises, and a few cracked ribs.
I make it a general rule not to carry my laptop around at night, but unfortunately, late hours on a laptop are my only means of chatting with people in other countries. I digress.
In case you want to know what it actually feels like to get robbed, read my blow by blow account below:
I was walking home, minding my own business, feeling perfectly calm, when a giant arm suddenly grabbed my head from behind. This didn't alarm me so much as it utterly confused me. It was not violent or unfriendly, it almost felt like someone was playing a joke on me. Lacking samurai training, I did not have the intelligence or common sense to duck, to punch the guy who was doing it, to knife him with my key, or to turn on him and scream something catchy, like, "That's my purse! I DON'T KNOW YOU!". I was just utterly WTF??
Then a second guy grabbed my bag from behind. Him, I did fight with, but only so much as was possible with the first guy bear hugging me into submission. I somehow wound up face-down on the ground, holding my bag like my life depended on it. I honestly don't remember if they forced me down, or if I fell in the struggle. I also can't remember what stopped me from grabbing my bag with both arms--if the first guy was holding me down, or if I was just that fucking stupid. I may have frozen up.
The man grabbing my bag proceeded to pull it off my arm so hard that the strap broke, leaving me with pretty much the bloodiest, ooziest rug burn you've seen in your life, all over my arm and underarm. He then punched me in the side, which, given that he was a coward and utter wimp, didn't even hurt (or even leave a bruise).
Picking myself up off the ground, I proceeded to chase them, enraged to a barbaric degree. I was going to kill them, I really was. I mean physically beat the shit out of them...somehow. I'd have gouged their eyes out with the metal point of my umbrella, anyway. Or something. OK, being a five-seven, 110 pound female with health issues, I probably would have come off the worst in that fight--but I am prone delusions of invincibility and fully intended to unleash my wrath on them.
But, my thyroid-wracked legs weren't really any match for those of hardened criminals, and they got away with my laptop and cell phone. A tuk tuk driver found me, and not understanding my pleas for help, took me to the nearest bar, where a random expat met me and tried to calm me down (which wasn't possible at that point).
She gave me $20 and gave me a lift home, and recommended I contact my embassy. At home, I promptly destroyed everything made of glass in my house with my unbloody umbrella, such was my unchanneled rage. Then I proceed to go on a 6 hour rant off my balcony, at the top of my lungs, about the evils of Cambodian society. I sounded like Moammar fucking Qaddafi--challenging the powers that be like a lunatic. Now all the neighbors hate me, which is fine, because I hate all of them.
But let me recount why I was so angry. Not just the violation--I've lost everything I valued in life. My ENTIRE LIFE was on my computer. If they'd burned down my house and everything I physically owned, it wouldn't have been half as devastating to me. That's not an exaggeration.
Here's why it sucks:
My cellphone--
- was from Dubai and could write in multiple languages, including Farsi and Arabic
- had my photo of me with Sheikh Mohammed
- had all the contacts I've accrued since 2007
- had an ornament that a student of mine gave me
- had recorded music
It's a beat-up piece of shit, complete with holes where you can see into the internal components, and it had no value to anyone except me.
My computer contained--
- photographs dating back to 2008, including personal ones and detailed photos of all my world travels
- everything I've ever downloaded
- my music
- all my Chinese lessons
- all my Khmer lessons
- my copies of passport photos
- my resume
- all my created artwork
- all the blog entries I was going to post (like the one I was illustrating about dengue fever that now you will never read)
- my private journal
- my stories I was going to publish
- all my personality theory work (some of which was expensively gotten)
- several online books
- my collection of awesome images I'd found online
- the passwords to all my accounts
- lots of embarrassing personal details
- my internet access
- my access to everything in the world, including my ability to easily apply for a job in Japan (my projected next move)
- my local bank account
What I was most depressed about is that no one else seemed to care about this. To me, my life is over. I am ruined. I've lost my family, my health, my wealth, my country, my place of residence, my future, and now the only object that I vested anything in and had anything I remotely cared about. It's as though they robbed me of my very soul.
Worse, it's going to be sold for $50, memory wiped clean, and be sold at a huge markup to some spoiled brat. My entire life, all my memories, my hopes and dreams, everything I valued and cared for in this world--worth a beating and $50.
I can only be grateful of two things--
- I didn't get raped
- I didn't get killed
-I can't even be grateful that I wasn't hurt, cause I'd honestly rather still be in possession of my computer even if I had some cuts, bruises, and a few cracked ribs.
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