An Open Letter To The Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo

Dick move, bro.  Total dick move.

But not for the reasons you think.

First of all, a stereo is just a stereo—it’s a thing.  A thing I don’t need.  You, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, you just took away a thing.  However, with it you took so much more.

When I was eight, I was going to be a star.  Ask my mom; she walked in on me in my room being Shania Twain too many times to count.  Being interrupted during imaginary concerts which I co-performed with the Backstreet Boys and The Monkees (I was a very musically decade-confused child) was my adolescent equivalent to masturbation.  I mean, not that it took the place of masturbation, it was just what I was walked in on doing like in all those teen movies—kids are always getting walked in on during masturbation.  Look, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, you’re making me digress and sound like I learned about my lady parts to “The Last Train To Clarksville.”  Whether or not that is the truth is not the point. 

The point is, you did not steal imminent stardom away from me—my uber stage fright and lack of talent did that at the tryouts for a talent show in the sixth grade in which I could not pull off Monica’s soulful part in “The Boy Is Mine.”  But despite the fact that I can’t get up in front of people without my voice quivering and that I can’t match half of the pitches I hear and that I’ve only got an octave and a half range (alto—and no one gives a shit about female altos), my car was my Ambassador Theatre.  I could scream myself into emo-ridden tears with Gerard Way and Billy Joe Armstrong, I could deafeningly and delusionally try to hit Mariah Carey’s high notes, I could put on the perfect show where I was both Megara and the Muses in Disney’s Hercules.  I was Sandra Dee, Roxie Hart, Jesus Christ Superstar.  But now…now I am the silent shell of a former blindingly brilliant star, throat slashed like the plastic around what used to be my orchestra pit.

Also, you sat in my car seat, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo.  Ew.  I feel totally violated.  I do not like to think about your ass where my delicate derriere goes.  When I was very upset about what you had done, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, I imagined the kind of person you are.  I am an open-minded, liberal sucker for all the criminals breakin’ the laws, but sometimes I get angry and revert to someone who’s lived in backwater, white-bred, red-state Appalachia for far too long.  I see the people who walk these streets.  I have painted your profile.  And you know what I see?  I see your clothes—and they are WAY TOO FUCKING BIG FOR YOU.

Because of this, it makes it much more likely that your ass is hanging out.  Your bare ass on my car seat.  Your bare ass that you have likely not cleaned recently.  Your bare ass that you have likely not cleaned recently and shoved massive amounts of drugs into because that’s why you’re stealing my mother fucking stereo, so you can fucking pawn it, probably to the fucking pawn shop RIGHT ACROSS THE FUCKING STREET, for enough cash to buy some more crack to shove in YOUR crack and sell to little kids and make them crack addicts too so they have to go out and steal other peoples’ personal Ambassador Theatres for crack to shove into their cracks.  Look, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, I don’t know anything about drugs, but I’m imagining them up your butt because I’m angry and this whole paragraph is butt-related, okay?  Cut me some slack—YOU JUST BROKE INTO MY CAR AND STOLE MY STEREO!

But I could live with these things, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, and I could ignore them if you hadn’t caused me a third and final malfeasant.  You made me think that the universe hated me.  How dare you, how VERY dare you.  I am an optimist.  I believe that good ultimately comes from good.  I have never needed positive reinforcement in my life to make me be nice or loving or to put up with peoples’ shit or to decide that it’s okay when things go wrong and to keep on smiling, because I’ve known that it’s more important for me to put out good into the world than to get good back, to even expect good back, because the universe would appreciate good and make other good happen—not necessarily to me or anyone I know, but just any good.  But I’ve been depressed lately and felt useless and hopeless and I just finished Wicked which destroyed a little piece of my soul and then this, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo.  This.

You do this and I become this solipsistic asshole who thinks the universe is so concerned with her that it’s decided to hate her.  What the fuck is up with that?  In a way, you turned me back into that eight year old who sang on her bed to a crowd of stuffed animals only they were throwing rotten vegetables at her instead of panties.  See, I am liberal, really, because I would like to be a lesbian icon whom gets ladies underwear thrown at her, and not just because those are preferable to rotten vegetables, but because they mark adoration and adoration from any group is adoration—I’m not prejudiced.  No, not used undies, new ones bought right before the concert because that would be funny because it’s so cliche, right?  So then this one girl does it and I make a big deal about it and then everyone starts doing it.  See?  Liberal.  Oh, but Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, you are making me digress again.

So maybe I should be thanking you, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, for rescuing me from what could have been a really horrible self-indulgent depression.  (Sidenote: Universe, if this was your doing for the same reasons, thanks.  I promise not to think you’re so concerned with me, Universe, that you’d single me out for anything ever again.)

But, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, I’m not going to thank you because, really, YOU BROKE INTO MY CAR AND STOLE MY STEREO!  That qualifies as a dick move and does not garner gratitude.

And by the way, you didn’t even get the most valuable things in there like the lei I had from Amanda’s bridal shower or Molly’s taekwondo medals or the Homies sticker from Maggie.  So suck on that, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo.

Suck. On. That.

--Ashley

P.S. I got really attached to The Monkees reference I made earlier, and I cheated you out of a way better Shania Twain reference.  I’m sorry, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, but only because it’s a pretty good one, not because I feel bad for depriving you.  Here is what it should have read:

“[My mom] walked in on me in my room being Shania Twain too many times to count…[Interrupted performing] was my adolescent equivalent to masturbation.  I mean, not that it took the place of masturbation, it was just what I was walked in on doing like in all those teen movies—kids are always getting walked in on during masturbation.  Look, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, you’re making me digress and sound like I learned about my lady parts to “Man I Feel Like A Woman.”

P.P.S. I actually do have to thank you, Person Who Broke Into My Car and Stole My Stereo, because you finally gave me a reason to use the word malfeasant.  I love that word.  But you should just know that I have to thank you; I’m not going to actually say it because, you know, YOU BROKE INTO MY CAR AND STOLE MY STEREO!