My Criminal Manifesto

My criminality started with an innocuous text message:

Feel like breaking into my pad to play with Murph?

The text was coming from Arizona, it's author, delayed by the snowstorm that descended upon Chicago yesterday. My equivocating began with a series of three responses:

1. I might be talked into that, except for the whole crime aspect of it
2. You think I have the criminal skills to beat a lock?
3. I'm from the hood known as 'Bibletown'

Yet the requests kept coming. However, I wasn't sold on an evening filled with breaking and entering.

Me: I still think you are a criminal mastermind attempting to me to break into your apartment
Anonymous Hottie: Doesn't my consent negate criminality?
Me: Not to the officer that is courting me off to jail because you are stuck in an airport
Anonymous Hottie: I am so crafty.

It might have ended there. I returned to the work I had to do in the office. But 15 minutes later I get a call from Daisy, the original dog sitter, who was whisked away by her boyfriend to be interrogated by his family over the Easter weekend.

Daisy: Just do it you'll be fine.
Me: Ok, fine.

Yeah, I put up a hard fight. I know. At this point I was toying with the idea of leaving a home-invasion/house-warming present. I thought that a nice box of Franzia Wine and Engine Cleaner would do the trick.

So I've arrived at the apartment complex. I have no way to get through the first door of the lobby and I have no way to get through the apartment door. As I'm rounding the corner, I see loads of people leaving. Alright, I'm going to be able to get in the front door. But as I get to the door, no one is exiting the building. Shit. All hope is not lost, an 8 year old boy is sitting in the lobby holding a baby while his parents are napping. I put on my best "I'm not hear to rob you face" and I point to the door. He gets off his chair, baby in hands, looks at me funny, and then opens the door. Step one is complete.

Step two: not as easy. I get to the appropriate floor and promptly make sure that no one is out of their apartments watching (the coast was clear). I put my things down in front of the door, take out my Jewel Preferred Card, and go to work.

Five minutes later, I've broke a sweat. I've cursed at the fucking door. I've cursed at my now mangled Jewel Preferred Card, and I call up my criminal mastermind:

Me: Daisy, it won't fucking open.
Daisy: Ok, what I normally do is slide the card in above the bolt, move it down, and jiggle it until the bolt pops.
Me: Well I'll attempt that.

In goes the card at the exact point where I had been attempting the infiltration as before. I slide it down, begin to jiggle, and just like that a neighbor shows up.

As a result, I have a new Mastercard Ad:

Jewel Preferred Card: Free with signup
A Political Science Bachelor Degree and a Juris Doctor: $250,000
Being able to bullshit a neighbor while you have been caught red handed attempting to jimmy open a door in the middle of the evening: Priceless.

After the neighbor leaves, I go back to work. I almost have it when a whole family of neighbors gets off the elevators. This time, I was able to yank the card out in time before they noticed that something was amiss. To them, I was just some guy, standing outside an apartment on their floor, talking on his iPhone. I hope.

Once the coast was clear, about 15 minutes after this venture started, I was back to work. 30 seconds later, I had the door opened. I got the Murph out, walked for a good 20 minutes, and then he and I decided to watch UNC mess up whatever unlucky 16th seed they were playing.