LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat.

Once upon a time the sprinkler repair guys left a head up, where it hid in the grass until I hit it with the lawn mower. This was on the 29th of May, at 10 o’clock in the morning, and it led directly to me getting carjacked on the 8th of July at 1:39 PM.

I was on my way home when I got a text from the lawnmower repair service: they could swing by and pick it up now. Great! I decided to leave it out, then continue the errands I had planned. Went home, hopped out of my car and yes, I left it running, because I was going to walk six steps to get the lawn mower, and besides, it’s Nice Part of Minneapolis, doncha know. I was pulling it out when I saw, out of the corner of my eyes, my car pulling away. There was one tall young male dressed in black running back to his car, and another male of indeterminate size in the driver’s seat.

Have you ever wondered what you would do in a situation like this? Instinct takes over, and your instinct is either be paralyzed by confusion or run after the thief. Apparently mine tend to the latter. I caught up with him as he was backing out of the driveway and threw a punch, which he dodged or I just threw wrong, and then I held on to the door frame while pounding his hand on the wheel, shouting, and I quote, “you are not going to steal my new car you motherfucker”

Whereupon he accelerated, and I continued to hang on, until it seemed wise to let go, and I have a vision of my glasses flying up in the air. I got up, reached for my phone, realized it was in the car. Well, option two, then. I ran to the house, aware I was bleeding from multiple locations, and ran upstairs to where my wife was chatting on the phone. I asked for her phon It took her a few seconds to process the request and the unexpected amount of blood, but she snapped right into gear. While I was stammering out the particulars to 911 I called up the relevant program, locked my phone and my laptop, since that was in the car as well. And they say men can’t multitask.

The police came by with admirable speed, but took my information with maddening lack of urgency. Off they went. I ran back upstairs to check the location of my items, and saw the phone was here, and the laptop was blocks away. I gave both of these pieces of information to 911, and tried to find my VIN to give to the impound lot. Still bleeding, leg now fully incarnadined. First things first. Well, the VIN would be in my insurance information, but I didn’t have it printed out, so I went online and couldn’t log in because of course Two-Factor Authentication! Which went to my phone! I couldn’t remember my pin. A call to the insurance company was unhelpful; without the pin, they could do nothing.

Now I was really mad.

While I was outside still fuming and bleeding, there was a knock at the gate: a nice man had found my bag, found a letter inside, and driven over to return it. Then the cops showed up - they had my phone! So the day’s looking up. I looked through the bag, and nothing was taken, but my Funco Agent Cooper had been shattered in the fall. He’d sat on my desk since 2017 and I decided to take him home today, as part of my cleaning-out-and-leaving process.

The “Find My Devices” function showed my AirPods were at two different locations, because the shithead wanted to make things just a little more difficult. I went to the first; couldn’t find it. Went to the second, and was looking around when a family returned home, and I asked if they could just keep an eye out for the iPod case. The husband, another nice guy, was deeply sympathetic, and told a story about a robbery in his driveway, and how of course they never caught them and even if they did, nothing would happen to them. His small daughter, dressed in a princess outfit, was looking at me with alarm, because I was still bloody. I explained that I fell down and it doesn’t hurt but boy if it was halloween I’d be pretty scary, huh? She was unmollified.

Spent the next two hours trying to reach the impound lot to give them my VIN, which I’d been instructed to do, only to be told eventually that I didn’t have to.

“So when they’re caught,” I said, “At least I’ll know they’ll spent three years in the hot sun breaking rocks.”

The impound lot guy gave a rueful chuckle. “We’ll see what [the county attorney] has to say about that. If you’re lucky they’ll be picked up in another country, where they actually prosecute for driving a stolen vehicle.”

Oh, forgot to mention: when I checked my text again there was one from the lawn mower guy. Just wanted to let me know he’d picked it up!

LATER We had a lot of gauze and I went through it all, binding up my wounds with clinical interest. The most annoying abrasion is on my hip, which does not like the friction produced by walking around with pants on.

Half the injuries:

Some gnarly road rash but nothing that needs stitches. I think.

Someone asked if I’d have shot them if I’d had a gun. Well, yes, but that requires a particular sequence of events: A) I have a gun on my hip as I am moving a lawn mower, and B) the misunderstood future quantum physicist approaches without brandishing, and C) the MFQP moved to produce a weapon, at which point you either get shot yourself or decide that this person will, tomorrow, be shown on the news in a high school graduation robe.

They probably did have guns. They were driving around the neighborhood looking for an opportunity, and a man by a car was such an opportunity. They would’ve needed persuasive tools to take the car if it wasn’t running.

Daughter called while I was looking for my AirPods, and was somewhat unnerved by my chipper tone, ascribing it - correctly, I suppose - to adrenaline. She called after dinner to see how I was feeling after the superman chemicals had subsided. I felt the same. Thing is, I don’t feel like a victim, even though that’s the technical term. I made that decision to fight and that changes how I feel about it. Probably shouldn’t have. But I’m glad I did.

And now: whiskey and ice cream. But it was always going to be that tonight anyway.

One more thing that broke: the staff of my Minnesota state flag, which was on my desk for ten years. The old flag. Of old Minnesota.

The last piece I wrote for the paper was about flagpoles.

It’s 1962.

And they are proud.

The latest and best and most up-to-date. A sign that the town was a prosperous, progressive city to which people would move for the solid good life it offered.

A fantastic act of Charity, but you wish they seemed more happy about it all.

As of 2016 the trust was still going and had about 100K in the bank.

Moody Quandt is a great name.

Prison camp on Koje Island, you say?

Geoje-do POW camp (Korean: 거제도 포로수용소, Chinese: 巨济岛戰俘營) was a prisoner of war camp located on Geoje island at the southernmost part of Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.[1] It is considered the largest of the UNC established camps.

Geoje Camp was a United Nations Command (UN) POW camp that held North Korean and Chinese prisoners captured by UN forces during the Korean War.

It turned into an extremely unpleasant place, with clashes between the prisoners and guards, kangaroo courts, capture of the American commander, and all sorts of fun stuff. It was in the news because it was in the process of closing.

Syndicated Iowa columnist?