Interpretations:What Did I Do To You?

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Anxiety squared

The narrator's twitchiness is delivering him into paroxysms of worry. In the middle of the night his excised appendix fills his thoughts - what if he needed it after all? He thinks he hears something outside - after the house has been battened up like a military prison - and he's practically shaking with fear (Get down you fool, they can see your silhouette!). He examines the locks to the shed in the morning & sees signs of manipulation that you don't. He starts crawling on the asphalt to show you scratch marks that he is sure weren't there last night.

You decide that you both need a vacation. As you get in the airport security line with your luggage, he's ahead of you with his. But a TSA guard stops him. From a distance you see him shake his fist & hear his voice rise: "Whatever happened to decency? To privacy? ...." --Nehushtan (talk) 01:42, 17 December 2019 (EST)

Getting robbed by your family

The narrator of the story is in bed, at sometime late in the night. At the start, they are just thinking; thinking about "chopped off, unloved, resentful appendages". The line about "phoning us at 3 am" makes me think that the appendages in question are the narrator's child(ren).

In the second verse, the narrator hears a scampering, and wonders if they secured their house. They can't take action due to fear, and all they can then hear is their pounding heart. Then, they hear lock tampering and someone dragging something heavy down the block. Their house is being robbed!

Afterwards, still paralyzed by fear, the narrator reflects on what this angry world is coming to. The nerve of some people to rob my house! Wondering, what prompted the burglars to choose this house? This is where the appendages come back into the picture.

The narrator was a poor, neglectful parent to their child (which they may not have wanted), and the child now robs houses and steals televisions, couches, etc. Neither the parent nor the child know who is robbing them, or who they're robbing, respectively. A cruel twist of fate, and the ultimate irony is the parent asking "What did I do to you?" to the burglar. -ChocolateTimbits (talk) 15:20, 21 July 2022 (EDT)