When I arrived in Seattle 3 ½ years ago, I was shocked to discover that you could pretty much count on your packages getting stolen off your doorstep out here. That never, ever happened to me in Florida. I had no idea what a fool’s paradise I had been living in.
Based on conversations with friends, though, I’m sorry to report that it isn’t just a West Coast thing anymore. Jacksonville, Florida has gotten just as bad as Seattle. Now, if you’re a package, there’s nowhere to hide, unless you are deposited inside an Amazon Drop Box.
This situation makes me really sad. It grieves me that our level of desperation is causing us to prey upon each other in such a cold manner. I know it’s getting more and more difficult to survive in this capitalist hell we’ve created for ourselves, but when we start turning on one another, nothing good can come of it. It’s as if we’ve all been let loose in the Colosseum to either kill or be killed, as the emperor looks on, smiling.
When you steal someone else’s package, you could be depriving them of the very medication they need to survive. You could be taking something that will mean absolutely nothing to you, but it could be a treasured family remembrance. Some desperately lonely housebound person may be counting on a package to feel connected to the world, and because of your greed it will never arrive. Someone might have been saving for years to make a purchase, and you’ve taken that from them. You could be holding in your hands a care package for a sick child.
I really can’t imagine being that selfish and despicable, that heartless and cruel. I suspect that this behavior is here to stay, though. We really are devolving as a species. As competition becomes stiffer, people keep stepping farther past the boundaries of common decency.
While I don’t condone vigilante justice, I totally get why people are starting to booby-trap packages. After a certain point, people get sick and tired of being robbed. Eventually someone is going to get hurt, though, either from a poorly designed trap, or by being caught in the act and beaten within an inch of their lives. Or shot. Or attacked by a dog. However it goes down, it’s not going to be pretty.
What it will be is tragically predictable.
The View from a Drawbridge 