The Day started off inauspiciously. I realized that my wallet had been stolen from my backpack while I was playing games at Fuddrucker's last night.
Today, I completed the second of my four "public service" days. I decided to complete two this week, and will serve the remaining two next week. I have them scheduled (on my personal calendar) on Tuesday and Thursday, my non-gym days, so I'll have some physical activity every day. This week, Tuesday was not as fulfilling as today (Thursday), as we mainly picked up trash (the men also loaded discarded furniture and a few garbage-laden shopping carts into a garbage truck, which mashed everything in its maw and swallowed it into its cavernous interior. There wasn't much conversation (at least toward me) on Tuesday, whereas today, there were a couple of people, whom I worked adjacent to, with whom I was able to carry on bits of conversation.
They had each chosen to perform community service in lieu of the hefty fines they received for their DUI convictions, each of which was easily over $2000. One actually lives in my neighborhood of San Diego, and he said that if we should ever see each other in another context, we should say hello, but he doesn't want me to tell people how we met, though I'd love to say, on such an occasion, "Oh, we served time together," just to see the look on the face of whoever was accompanying either of us. As funny as that might sound, it'd be the sad truth.
Today, we cleaned out a drainage ditch in the East County. We cleared a lot of leaves, small branches, and assorted discarded debris: candy wrappers, pens and pencils, and even a computer/music disc (I didn't inspect it so I don't know if it was a cd or dvd). The most potentially valuable thing I found was a drill bit that would be the correct size and length for drilling holes into stone or concrete for the insertion of rebar.
We took lunch at the small airport located in either El Cajon or Santee (I don't know eastern San Diego well at all). The young woman, beside whom I worked in the ditch, asked me if I was eating chicken pot pie. I answered, "No, it's a quiche that I made last night because I knew I had this today." She'd never heard of quiche before, but said it looked good. One of the young men who shared the table with us said, "Quiche is good." I didn't feel hungry enough to eat my apple, so left it in my erstwhile lunch tote to bring with me on Tuesday.
Three women who rode in the van with our group were separated out to work for a female officer, whom we met in a rural industrial parking lot. When we picked them up at the end of the day, one of them complained about their officer, calling her (the officer) a bitch. Another woman said, "She wasn't really a bitch; she wasn't mean, but she's just [very exact and demanding]." I thought to myself, well, yeah, I'd be that sort of probation officer, too!
One thing that I've noticed about our motley crew: most were mainly regular "normal" people with regular jobs, and a decent percentage of them smoke tobacco. We were given occasional "smoke breaks" during which the addicts would light up and get their fix. The rest of us could have a snack or a drink from beverages that we'd brought with us, use the loo, or simply stand there.
The young man who worked on the same section of the ditch as I I worked has run several marathons, in San Diego and LA, but had stopped running when he started to drink more heavily. Now he's determined to get back into running and to moderate his alcohol consumption. I encouraged him to do so.
My last task was to sweep the street to sweep up the detritus which came out with us when we exited the ditch at its upper end. The young woman's job was to brush out the van we rode in, for there was dried and caked mud between and below our seats.
My fellow servants and I ended up finishing our tasks ahead of the end of the day (3:30p), so the officer brought us back to our meeting place (the County Services Complex) and let us go for the day.
Upon reaching home, I phoned my credit card companies to report my cards stolen, then talked to an officer from the San Diego Police Department, filing a report for a stolen item. Finally, I was able to phone the credit union to report stolen ATM and credit cards.
Unfortunately for me, my SCUBA cert cards were also in my wallet, along with my library card, my gift card from Home Depot, and my Transit photo ID. Not fun. I kind of hope that whoever stole it throws it away and that it's found and returned, because all the ID cards are worth much more to me than the cash, though there was not an insignificant amount of cash in it, either...
I hold out little hope of having anything returned, since its return would immediately cast suspicion on the perp, and then they'd be alienated, if not literally, then at least in their mind, from other Meetup attendees that night. But I'm giving the perp a conscience, and they obviously don't have one, to steal a wallet from someone's backpack while attending a recreational social activity.
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