Earlier this year I got into a huge argument with a guy who tried to rationalize stealing. His logic was that if his family is in need, they're hungry and the lights are out, he should do everything he can to make sure they're taken care of. No doubt about it. I agreed with him, but stealing isn't the answer and he was trying to justify that illegal tactics are quicker and necessary for certain circumstances. He said as the man of the house, he has to do what he has to do. I told him, "That's not a man. That's a dumbass." You do more harm than good when involving yourself (and, by default, your family too) in illegal activities. Although he claimed to be past that stage in his life, the fact that he was defending what he'd done told me one thing--you'd do it again if times got hard and you're not altogether convinced it was wrong. That to me is simply unacceptable.

When I was in preschool, my mother and I were walking home and two guys tried to snatch her purse. My mother is a very even-tempered woman but she went stone cold crazy over these two guys trying to take what's hers. You never know what a person will do in a situation like that, and logic should've told her, "Let the purse go." Instead she let her fists go flying. Whoever told you a woman can't fight a man surely lied because I'm still astounded that she was defending herself so quickly.

Now I don't know what those two freeloaders were going through to make them feel like it was OK to rob someone of her possessions, but from then on, every time I hear about an incident like this, it rubs me a little harder than it might for someone else. It's personal to me. When my parents moved into their first house, I was the one to come home to see their place trashed and things stolen . . . twice. You know what they did? They refused to move. Place got robbed again. They stayed. My mother, once again, flipped out. She got an alarm, a gate and a dog. We didn't have any problems after that, but she's always been the type to feel like there's nobody on Earth who's going to run her out of any place. She was who I thought of today.

I got home and my maintenance guy told me that there was an empty box in the laundry room with my name on it. I didn't understand what he was talking about, but when he showed me, I saw that someone had taken everything out of a box I'd had delivered and left nothing inside. My first reaction: Surprise and thoughts of moving. Although I have a bone to pick with USPS for leaving packages in our lobby (it's locked, but still) and mail delivery people being too lazy to fill out a slip, my beef is 65% more with the person who took my stuff. Should USPS have left my stuff knowing full well I didn't answer the doorbell? No. But they've done it before and I've come home to my package safely in the lobby or on the lobby floor. Yes, we have some new neighbors and the neighborhood is changing, but just because the faces change doesn't mean the peace has to go away. I shouldn' t have to worry about thieves in my own building. And I shouldn't have to leave out of an apartment and neighborhood that I've grown to enjoy.

I like being able to walk outside at night and drop off mail or go running. I like being able to come from the beach or lakefront at all hours of the night. I like that feeling that folks around me have their own thing going on and aren't just lounging around on corners, standing in doorways and being ignorant for no good reason. I grew up around the latter. It got old quickly! In addition to a job that was too far from my childhood neighborhood, the other reason I moved was to find a more diverse, peaceful place to live where folks knew how to act.

There is never an excuse to open anyone else's mail, steal anyone else's stuff and feel like it's justifiable. I don't care what you're going through. Get a job. Stop stealing other folks' shit! While there are some folks who really do have money to blow, the fact is it's theirs. You may have a problem with not having your own, but that never gives you the right to take from someone else. While a thief may look at the situation like, "They can get _________ again but I have nothing," I wonder does that thief ever stop to think the lasting impression that a situation like that can have on the person he/she's stealing from. As a child, I should've never been exposed to a robbery and two burglaries. As an adult, I still size up everybody I walk by with my purse nearby. And now I can't even trust the folks enough in my own building to not open my mail.

P.S. The package had Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never" DVD and singer Tyrese Gibson's book "How to get out of your own way." This person is definitely going to lose G points for stealing a Justin Bieber DVD. However, I hope the simple person who stole my stuff will take the time to read the book and get out of his/her own way. Maybe it was meant to be for that person to steal that package. I hope it does the person some good. In the meantime, I still want my book and DVD so I'll be ordering it again.