Getting gay with B&E

For decades I’ve avoided owning expensive things for fear of ruining or losing them; my idea of Bling is action figures and bobbleheads.

But they were of little comfort to me when my apartment got broken into.

It wasn’t bad enough he took everything branded with an apple; or my cool new camera and vacation photos; or my birth certificate, passport, SIN and Green Card. No, he had to take my laundry money as well. Do you know how hard it is to get fucking loonies in this town?

Typical me, I was on an internet sex date when it happened. On my way, a friend called and I expressed the usual reservations: Will he look like his picture? Do I fuck him if he’s hideous?

His theory was, “Tony, the only thing worse than bad sex is no sex.”

Little did we know at the time.

It could have been worse. The dog wasn’t hurt. I have insurance. He didn’t take Sandra Bernhard’s “Without you I’m nothing.”

And thanks to the teachings of Carrie Bradshaw I have learned to keep my computer backed up to a sequestered external hard drive.

Although I had been spring cleaning the day that it happened, my apartment wasn’t ready for visitors — it never is. I followed the cop assigned to my case as he mapped the perpetrator’s footsteps through my apartment.

“Did he get into the bathroom?” he asked, standing by the open door. That’s when I saw my dildo drying on the ledge of the tub. Talk about feeling violated. There was a perfectly good explanation for it being there, but I figured it wouldn’t make any difference to the cop. There’s just no recovering from a dildo.

“Now how did that get there?” I said, closing the shower curtain on it.

You become acutely aware of the city’s inequities after a break-in. That same week while walking my dog on a leash a city official asked to see my dog license. Not only that, she expected me to bend down and read it to her. Where’s my dildo when I need it?

“Would you like to see the man who broke into your apartment?” asked the building manager.

The suspect’s face was hidden from the security camera by a hoodie. He looked like Obi-Wan Kenobi tiptoeing through the Death Star. I could see the outline of my laptop in his bag.

Now whenever I see a hoodie-wearing junkie in my neighbourhood, I wonder, “Was it you?” But then I look at how they live and I think, “Even if it was, can I blame you?”

I mean, you’ve got to be pretty down on your luck to be stealing from me.