Wishing Ill on Others

So a friend of mine and his wife went to a baseball game in St. Louis (Red Sox were in town), they returned home to find that their apartment had been broken into and quite a bit of stuff had been stolen. I think that something so bad coming out of the blue is made even worse after a good day. It is so unexpected, a sucker punch at your own wedding.

I remember exactly what I was doing on July 19, 2003. Carrie and I were at her much older cousin’s 50^th wedding anniversary. As he was a wealthier guy, and enjoyed throwing nice parties for his guests, it was a pretty good time. Good food and decent people. Came home to a message on the answering machine that Mom had a heart attack and was in the hospital. It seems like two separate days actually. Sometimes I forget that it was the same day. A punch in the gut.

Is it wrong to want the thief to die a slow, painful death? Preferably in a nursing home of course. Is it wrong to want the cheapskate landlords, who didn’t put in video cameras to protect their tenants, to have their house burgled? The responding police officer said that there had been several robberies in that building over the years, of course the landlords didn’t divulge this information when attempting to rent out the apartment, and like I said, they have done NOTHING to fix the situation. Maybe a slow, painful death should be wished for them as well.

What kind of person breaks into someone else’s home? Aside from the theft of property, the illusion of safety is completely destroyed, for this I wish stomach cancer on the thief. What an act of uncaring, what a selfish, wretched act! In the words of the great Lombardi, “What the hell is going on here?”

I know the answer: sin. But I want to know how this wretch sleeps at night, knowing that there are people who aren’t right now, at least not in their own beds. How can this person be so hateful? And for this I wish Alzheimer’s on the thief.

There is always justice in the end, maybe not in this life, but I know that there will be care for those unjustly treated, at least for these people. I have seen to that. What I wish for most though, is that these two people will be able to feel safe again, and sleep well at night. Hey, I can’t use all my wishes up hoping for pain and suffering to befall the evildoer now, can I?

Fritz

P.S. Huzzah! I have one wish left! How about death by frog stampede?