What I won't miss, part one: a key attack

As I was cleaning out the old apartment, somebody took a key to my car's paint job. It was clearly no accident because the scratch goes all the way around the vehicle. What really irks me is that I know who did it, but I can't prove it. And without proof — or a confession from the miserable, skulking bastard — I have no recourse. It's almost enough to make me long for simpler times ...

In an earlier, simpler time, I would have slapped him twice across the face with my gloves (preferably the chain-mail ones), and said, "Sirrah, I find thee a knave, a coward, and a big ol' poopyhead. Make whole your mischief or meet me on the field of honor at dawn." And, craven that he is, he would have forked over the repair cost.

Realistically, though, in an earlier, simpler time, I would have been a peasant(*) — a miserable peasant growing membranes between my toes from living in the bogs. In such a state of webbed serfdom, I would have had scant property and less recourse. So I'm better off now.

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(*) Of course, as an Irish-American, I am a descendant of kings — it's difficult to avoid such a blot on one's pedigree. But where my ancestors lived, a man was reckoned a king if he was rich enough to own two pigs, so it hardly signifies.