The Matter of Sam

Saturday morning, I got up early to write before going on a run. Sam lay in bed next to Charlie the dog, scanning the news and solving Wordle before donning his soccer clothes and walking out to his car, which was gone.

Apparently, it takes a few seconds to process car theft. In his head, Sam ran down alternate reasons that could explain the car’s absence until he understood it had been stolen.

Sam was not in the habit of locking his 2017 certified pre-owned Honda Civic, but he was in the habit of squirreling away the keys underneath the clutter in the center console area. So, maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised his car was stolen, but, as with anything that’s never happened before, he was.

“God, Sam,” I said. “You must feel so…I don’t know, violated.”

His reply was he was mostly annoyed. “I had all my stuff in there.”

“All my stuff” includes:

1.)   His soccer shoes and his back-up soccer shoes.

2.)  The improvised soccer goals his bestie Josh made for his birthday last year.

3.)  Three soccer balls.

4.)  Two tennis racquets.

5.)  A “really nice” (his words, not mine) soccer bag he took from a gutter in New Haven.

6.)  His Pacific Electric Film Co. backpack, gifted to Jake by Ed Helms more than a decade ago and passed along to Sam, sporting mysterious stains and broken zipper.

7.)  His polarized sunglasses, a discount brand named Goodr that must have disappointed the thief because Sam keeps them in Jake’s   discarded Ray-Bans case.

8.)  The wedge pillow he sits on to prevent a recurrence of his sciatica.

Of course Sam wants his car back, but the world has any number of 2017 Honda Civics. The gutter rescue soccer bag that illustrated how just how low Sam will go is unique, as are Josh’s combination orange caution cone and PVC pipe soccer goals.

I knew he was as bummed as he was annoyed, but Sam doesn’t dwell, and that afternoon, we rode our bikes to the community center to vote early, which may sound like a non sequitur, but it’s not. Sam lost some stuff, but not the stuff of Sam.