New2NY: Relax, You're Just Absentminded

I panicked this morning – my wallet was gone.

I knew it was gone because I have wedged myself into little habits where I keep certain possessions in a specific place. I’m not really one for routine, but it is nice to know that if I leave my keys and Subway card on my bedside table when I get home from work, they will be there in the morning. But this morning, after I grabbed my keys and Subway card, I wanted to check my wallet to see if I needed to stop at the ATM on the way to work for lunch money. (Isn’t that cute I still call it lunch money).

I scrambled through my abyss of a bag – since when did so much stuff coagulate? – and alas I concluded that my bulging wallet was absent. I guess it didn’t take long because the pink hearts and the sheer weight of the thing make it stand out. So the panic began…

Where is it? When did I last use it? What if someone stole it? Let me search everywhere…under the bed? No. Kitchen table? No. Maybe it somehow found its way to the bathtub? Of course not, Yael, how can you be so silly at a time like this? What if the giant cockroach that visited last night carried it away into the building’s foundation? No, it would never fit through any crack. Oh, my parents always warned me about pickpockets in New York. Mike’s dad doesn’t take the Subway just for that reason. How could I be so naïve!!?! Crap, I’m late for work.

I was so distracted for my entire commute that I hardly noticed the older woman jabbing her elbow into my ribcage from 86th to 59th (ok, maybe I did notice a little). I couldn’t even open the really really exciting book that I just started (Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre). All I could think about were pickpockets and keeping my bag close to me. The latter isn’t really that hard to do when you are packed into the cattle car they call the Subway.

Really, I don’t want to bore you with anymore of my cliché dramatic writing, so I’ll just let you know how much of a pea brain I had yesterday (but only yesterday of course). When I arrived at work, there was my wallet, sitting open, on top of the scanner, to the right of my computer – exactly where I had left it yesterday when I took out my corporate Amex to make an airfare purchase. I’m very lucky my building has honest janitors who decided not to take home said wallet as an early Christmas gift. Yes, I’m a doof. I’m blaming on all the chemicals in the city air.

Still, I felt this experience could lead to a good blog post a) because it’s embarrassing and people like to read about others’ embarrassments, b) because most other people in the city would also automatically assume they’ve been pick-pocketed and c) to display to you that petty theft in NYC is and has definitely been on the decrease for a while.

According to this weekly police report, there were 481 incidences of burglary reported in the last week, 1,901 since 10/1, and 17,727 year to date in NYC. That may seem like a lot, but the latest government census data has the population of New York City at 8,250,567 (plus at least 1 for myself ). Roughly, .002% of the population was robbed in the last week, .023% in the last month and about 2.1% in the last year. Your chances are pretty low my friend, especially because those statistics are from all five boroughs, not only Manhattan. Another thing I found interesting in the report were the percent changes in crime statistics. Although statistics state robbery occurrences are up 1.9% since last year, they are down 6.5% since two years ago, 20.8% from seven years ago and 74.5% from fifteen years ago. If I had known that data this morning, maybe I wouldn’t have panicked so much and would have actually been able to chew my Cheerios instead of just swallowing them whole.

That report shows statistics for all other categories of crime in the city as well and if you’re interested in looking, you should check it out. I’m very impressed with the police department for actually producing a comprehensible ONE-PAGE document (the one page is key!) that has relevant information for the curious public to steal a peak, if you will.

At least in a world of crooks, I can feel safe knowing that I have only a 2.1% chance of getting robbed in a year. However, the probability of me being absentminded, well, I forgot, what was I talking about?