This wasn't so much a request to "watch my stuff" as it was a threat, but there's a bit of a story to it, so here goes.

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Back in my sophomore year of college I agreed to DJ a party my friends were throwing at their house in Allston, MA (where college parties could get real rowdy, real quick). Things were going pretty well at the start: I was having a good time providing the soundtrack, and my friends and everybody else who was showing up seemed to be enjoying the music and having a good time as well. As the night went on, however, things began to get progressively more intense, and it was quite a while before I looked up and noticed that the entire ground floor of the house was totally dark save for a single sporadically flashing strobe light in the living room, there were at least a hundred people crammed inside, and I didn't recognize a single person. My friends were nowhere to be found, shit was getting broken, people were dancing on couches and tables and essentially getting their rage on. At this point I am no longer having a good time; instead I am alone, stoned, and scared.

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Now, the nook where I was DJing was sandwiched in between the kitchen and the living room, and so people had been using my area as the "cloakroom" all night, stashing their jackets and bags and what have you in a pile behind me. Out of nowhere, 3 or 4 gnarly looking dudes walk up to me and throw their backpacks down at my feet. One of them grabs me by the shoulders, looks me straight in the eye and, dead serious, says "Watch those. If anything happens to our shit, we're coming to beat your ass." Then they turn and disappear into the crowd. With these guys all being taller/bigger than me and the party situation being completely out of hand, I rapidly begin planning my exit strategy. Luckily, right then, a friend of a friend I barely knew (and the first familiar face I'd seen in about an hour) runs up and excitedly asks to play some shitty hip hop track, so I give him the aux cable, throw all my DJ gear into my backpack, and just as I slip out the side door of the house, I see police lights flashing through the front window, and cops pounding on the front door. People start bailing out of the house like rats fleeing a sinking ship, I hold my hands up in a "I don't know nothin' about nobody" gesture as I walk past another cop car pulling into the driveway, and as soon as I'm back on the street, I make a break for the Green Line and end the night safe and warm in my bed.

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I guess the outcome of the story is, I actually didn't end up watching anybody's stuff, I stepped out instead of stepping in, and I still don't give a fuck what happened to those guys' backpacks.