the first thing i noticed was the bathroom.  the shiny new light switch had been swapped out for the old dingy one it had replaced.  this i thought was odd.  at the time, i was sharing the apartment with a woman with whom i had recently met, and so we were in that new-roommate stage where you are theoretically “just friends”, although still trying to figure out if it could “go anywhere” because she was really hot.  i showed her the switch in the bathroom and together we explored the rest of the apartment.  to our horror, we found that all over the apartment, electrical sockets were carefully removed, leaving behind detached multi-colored tentacles of electrical wire dangling where the sockets had been.  my roommate clutched onto me and we both shivered from fear and from something else.  a more detailed inspection revealed that no other items had been touched; it seemed that whoever this thief was, he or she was weirdly mundane in their selection.  and that was the part that scared me — when someone steals for no apparent reason, you wonder why they picked your place.  you wonder if they’re going to come back and steal your q-tips, your shoe liners, everything green, linoleum, your photo albums (but carefully leaving behind the photos).  i was thinking about these things that night when i went to bed with my roommate, leaving all the lights on.