Every so often, there’s that day.

The day where you get an email from a former flame who wants her record player back, because one year ago, she really wanted you to hear the way that Beatles sound on vinyl. Specifically, the Revolver album.

It’s also the same day when you get into a fender bender on the freeway during heavy traffic at night. A car rear-ends you at a slow speed. You step outside, look at the damage, but you’re so shocked that it happened. You get the driver’s business card and you think five minutes, “The insurance information!” And it’s too late as you see the driver speed off two lanes over.

It’s the day when you spill a little coffee on your white shirt, a pen stain on your hand, and when someone cuts you off in line.

You think to yourself, This isn’t a bad day. This isn’t a bad day. But the moment that you get a text saying that your library books are overdue and your friend cancels dinner, you start to believe that there’s bad luck even though for your sanity, you had to swore bad luck off 5 years ago.

So it’s 8 PM and you seek mind-numbing experiences. Where will you begin?

…and it wasn’t a good thing.

“They are probably all tools,” Chris said. “Just look at them.”

The party was entering its third hour. The music and the crowd seemed to increase in volume. People stepped all over us as we sat near the bottom of the stairs in faux granite bean bag chairs. Following Chris’ comment, I watched a guy coming down the stairs. He wore a button-collared silk shirt with a print that repeated throughout the material. He was Asian with a short-trimmed haircut and carried a drink in his hand. The guy noticed my eyes studying him and headed directly for me. I could feel Chris laugh silently as I brainstormed options for retreat.

“That looks like a nice chair,” the guy said, hovering above me.

“It is,” I said and mentally kicked Chris for getting me into this situation.

“What are you drinking?”

“Water.”

“Not a drinker?”

“No.”

“A good girl, huh?”

I stopped myself at that moment, frantically thinking of something that would make him go away instead of myself having to leave. “Are you in user experience?” I asked politely.

“Sort of. I heard about it and came here.” He swirled his drink and took a sip.

I narrowed my eyes and became testy. “So what is it? What is user experience to you?”

“An experience for an user. A user that experiences. An experience of an user.”

“I see. It doesn’t sound right.”

“You got me! I am not in user experience! I like your boots.”

I didn’t respond. He leaned over and touched them. Then he tapped my arm and said, “What’s your name? My name is John.”

“I think that my friends are leaving so I am going to go,” I said and stood up, exchanging an angry glance with Chris who sat mute and amused.

“See?” Chris said moments later. “He completely proved me right.”

This is what I won’t write in my police report:

“Value,” I said. “You just have to show value.”

My friend looked at another friend and me. We had spent the last 45 minutes talking about how to negotiate salary when someone says no. The party was winding down and the noise had decreased to the 3 conversations happening in the room. “Thank you for helping me,” she said.

“Just remember, show value!” I said. “Let me know what happens.”

We hugged and I walked to my car. In the next 10 seconds, I thought about how I had succeeded in building a successful career, about how nice it was that a small boutique agency hosted the party, about where I could get the toffee that was served, and all the lunches/coffee that I needed to set up with colleagues. I pressed the “unlock” button on my keys and sucked in a breath when the car honked back.

It meant only one thing: someone/something had touched my car and the car alarm went off. But I didn’t see anything in the barely lit street. I opened the driver door and gasped to find that the window of the front passenger side door was completely smashed. I walked to the other side of the car and found that the wing door of the back passenger door was smashed. The glove compartment was closed but its contents were all over the seat. The center console was open and its contents was dropped in the backseat and the front seats. I looked to see if anything was missing: my garage door openers were there, the fast track was there, the three cords I keep for car charging still there.

Shocked, I called Chris unsure what to do. Was I supposed to call 911? I remember calling 911 several years ago when I was hit by a car while on a bike and they refused to come since no injury occurred. Was I suppose to file a police report? In the past, I have always done it wrong, losing money in the process. I agreed that he would help me assess the damage.

“Are you okay?” he said when I arrived.

I worried about my bikes and my laptops at my place. Those are my valuable items. I thought about the wallet I lost in DC and how when I got it back, $200 in cash was missing and a few weeks later, my credit cards were used. I thought about how I tossed the wallet shortly afterwards feeling the filth of a malicious stranger. I touched my wallet and my phone in my bag, which was next to me the entire time at the party. I thought about how I keep multiple addresses in my car and whether they would confuse thieves to where I really lived. And then I thought about what a thief thought about my last name of two letters.

Chris observed that my pens and an old pink GPS were missing. He taped up the wing window and told me how the process worked. He had more experience with this than I did, having experience theft more than 3 times.

I decided to go back to my place into my garage where I parked awkwardly. As I diligently put my paperwork into a box, I came across a shard of glass with a red mark. I imagined the thief smashing the window and his fingers grazing the glass. But I didn’t see blood anywhere else. I thought about how I could bring this as DNA evidence and the laughter a cop would say, “That’s not enough to convict.”

So then I went into my apartment. Chris had emailed his police report when his car was vandalized several months ago. I wrote up a police report, and said only a part of what was above.

“Um, I am going on mute.”

“You’re breaking up.”

“There’s a bad echo. Can everyone go on mute if you’re not speaking?”

“Can you hear me?”

“Who is the organizer of the meeting? John says that he needs the audio code.”

“Who just joined?”

“Sorry I am 15 minutes late. Can you quickly repeat what you just said?”

“I can’t see your screen.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“Bark Bark.”

If only everyone I needed to work with were all located in the same place, I would be a happy person. But they never are, so I will always have to listen to conference calls.