Leaving It Behind

This is mostly a note to myself: don’t leave your MacBook unattended in a café. It’s rule number one. You buy an overpriced Apple product instead of giving that money to people who actually need it, the least you can do is keep track of it.

But I don’t. I’m at Sankt Oberholz or Mein Haus am See or whatever eco-café is happening in Neukölln, and I get up to use the bathroom and just… leave it. The laptop sits there, screen still glowing, like an open invitation. Do I think other people will watch it? Sometimes I tell myself that. Mostly I just don’t think at all.

There’s a video of a software developer named Ahryun in San Francisco—she’s the type who genuinely believes the city is safe, which tells you something about her judgment to begin with. She left her laptop on a table. Walked away for a few minutes. When she came back it was gone. Just like that.

It happens every day. Thousands of times. In every city. The thing is, I watch videos like that and think yeah, that’s stupid, and then I do the exact same thing the next afternoon. Maybe it’s the embarrassment of carrying it to the bathroom. Maybe it’s pure denial. Either way, it’s only a matter of time before I become my own cautionary tale.