Theft

[Report. English. Resumen: El robo de la mierda pone de manifiesto que cada cosa significa algo distinto para cada quien y entramos en una era de incomunicacion.]

Language diversity is making communications more difficult. I asked six people what they understood by they stole my shit.

Respondent 1, a high school junior in Connecticut, said he understood as someone stealing his pot.

Respondent 2, a manager at the Espresso Express kiosk, said he had developed a system to diffuse morning congestion. He stood on a chair calling out the beverages for the coffee makers (all Hispanic) in Spanish while another worked the line collecting the money. The system was way too Third World, said the owner. The manager, a man from New Delhi, resented the categorization. Two thirds of the doctorate candidates in astrophysics at MIT were Indian, he exploded against the owner, adding: You mother fucker, who are you calling Third World? Do I look Mexican? He was fired. A few weeks thereafter he went by kiosk. And what do you know, he told me, the mother fucker stole my shit. He kept my system with only one variant: he had a redhead in a mini skirt up on the chair calling out the drinks!

Respondent number 3, a woman out from divorce court, said that she married happy, full of life, I exuded joy, and he (her ex husband) stole my shit, which was priceless. She was suing him for one million dollars.

I rephrased the question for the remaining three respondents: What did they understand by my shit was stolen?

Respondent 4, a priest, the principal at Saint Alban’s School in Virginia, said that a midterm test was stolen and that he was about to teach the entire class a lesson, but he had not decided whether it would be on ethics, thou shall not steal, or forgiveness, to err is human.

Respondent number 5, a football player with Washington’s Saint Alban’s school (the famous one), irate about the Virginia school usurping the venerable name, said: Them fucks stole our name, they stole our shit!

And finally respondent 6, a psychotherapist in Miami, I interviewed over the phone, went straight to the point: My shit was stolen," he said, the day I was born, my optimum state.

Not one respondent considered that they stole my shit or my shit was stolen referred to the unauthorized removal of excrement. While it might strike some people as bizarre, stealing shit happens all the time, said Detective Smith in Manhattan. Athletes steal excrement quite often. In fact, at insurance school underwriters can specialize in ST (shit theft).