Stick a fork in it, it's done

The plan was that I was going to drive to the great state of Pennsyltucky tomorrow to spend Christmas with my sister and other assorted relatives.

This afternoon I was vacuuming when Hank started barking and I realized someone was knocking at my door. It was the guy from the plumbing shop across the street. He told me that someone had just sideswiped my car and knocked off the driver's side mirror. What's more the car that did it was now parked 15 feet away in front of the corner store that ruined my life.

I should have been content to take down the license plate, but I was pissed and I hate the idea that I'm supposed to be afraid of people, and my pissed-off-ness overrides my fear. So I go to the car and tap on the driver's window. The glass is tinted dark but I can see a teenage kid sitting in there. But he won't roll down the window.

But right then another kid comes out of the store and comes over to the car. I ask him if this is his car? And did he know that he just sideswiped my car. Uh, er, I didn't do it. Well, who did it? I'm not going away, so he gets the driver to open the door. Do you know you just hit my car? I wasn't driving. (Even though it happened one and a half minutes ago and he's sitting in the driver's seat.) Who's car is this? My auntee's. Does she have insurance? Uh. The other kid gets on his phone and says he's calling his auntee. I can tell this is bullshit and turn away. The second my back is turned the car squeals away.

But I have the license plate number. I call in a complaint to the police. I give them the plate number and describe the car.

Now, I know that New Orleans police have more important things to worry about and I don't expect them to respond very quickly to an incident like this.

However, several hours later when a cop finally shows up, he tells me that the car that hit mine had been carjacked last night. The owner was returning to her car after walking her dog in Audubon park. Three teenagers on bicycles approached her, beat her with a pipe, took her car keys and drove off in her car.

So now, three hours after they drove away from the corner store, the cops are looking for the car in my neighborhood. I think they might have had better luck if they'd shown up a little sooner.

I'm afraid I've made myself (even more of) a target.

So many things about this disturb me and piss me off, but for some reason the thing that gets me the most is--how fucking stupid do you have to be to steal a car, don't bother to change the tags, and drive it around the same area you took it from? And then, when you hit another car in full view of a half a dozen people, you nevertheless park the stolen car and saunter into the corner store as if nothing happened?

Maybe they don't give a shit because the so-called criminal justice system is so useless that even if the cops actually catch them, it's extremely unlikely that they'll face any punishment worse than a night it jail.

In the meantime, it's been raining and raining all day and there is several feet of flooding in some areas. It seems the pumps have not been fixed since Katrina, so it just takes a long rainstorm to cripple the city.

It's official. I hate New Orleans. It seems to be a common feeling. This was posted on Craigslist tonight:

I'm not posting this for sympathy or anything like that. I just want my anger and frustration to be heard. I have always been a die hard N'Awlins boy. I never thought I would even think of leaving.

I had built a good life here. A home in Gentilly Terrace, a good job managing a great restaurant and two beautiful children that I maintained joint custody of after their mother and I split.

Katrina filled my Gentilly home with 7 feet of water and left me homeless for almost a year. My insurance settlement left me no chance of rebuilding. It also cost me the job I had worked so hard for for 20 years. Then it took my two kids away when their mother decided to relocate to Minnesota. I lost it all and I still stayed, hoping that I could rebuild some sort of life resembling what I had before.

Today I came home to my shitty little one bedroom apartment to find out that someone had broken in and stolen everything I owned, including all of the Xmas gifts I had saved months to buy for my kids, who are coming home for the holidays in two days.

So I'm done here. I'm giving up my new job, packing up what's left and leaving. And for all of you assholes that keep preaching about rebuilding, renewing and reviving New Orleans, give it up, IT'S ALREADY DEAD AND BEYOND OUR HELP. GOODBYE.