During my 12 years in New Orleans, I’ve managed to mostly avoid crime. For five of those years, I tempted fate by not owning a car and riding everywhere on bikes—three of which I did lose to thieves, but bike theft is quaint compared to the crime this city coughs up daily. I’ve swung my heavy U-lock at groups of teenagers who’d pulled their shirts up over their noses and grabbed at me in passing, but I’ve remained in the minority of longtime Marigny/Bywater residents who’ve never been mugged or robbed. Until last Tuesday, when someone smashed the window of my rental car and stole my laptop bag stuffed with four pounds of writing that my elementary and middle school students had planned to publish as a book…

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Or watch this music video (an anti-noodle song) by some kindergarteners I taught this summer: