I was doing laundry this morning at the local all-night laundromat. Naturally I took something to read, in the form of my HP Jornada handheld computer. I got a good deal and only paid $300 for it instead of the usual $800, but that’s not exactly pocket change, either.
So I turned my back for 2 minutes to put my clothes in the dryer, and the damn thing was GONE. Ever the optimist, I asked everybody in the place if they’d seen it, I asked the guy on duty if somebody had found it and turned it in, thinking it was lost…no dice. Some mf-er just took it.
Yeah, I should have known better than to leave it on a table without my eyes on it constantly. But I’ve had it with these f-ing pieces of trash who think they’re entitled to MY stuff, just because it’s not welded to the damn floor.
I swear, the next time I see somebody stealing something - ANYTHING - I’m going to get violent. I have no respect for jerks who have no respect for other people’s property, and I have no qualms about breaking a thief’s legs anymore.
Right now I feel absolutely, FIERCELY, VIOLENTLY, ENRAGED!!!
If your town or city is fairly small , a visit to the local pawn stores with your PDA serial # and ID info might be worthwhile. Give the police this info as well.
Damn every stupid thief who thinks they can just take things! It’s not yours! Stop saying it is! I HATE YOU!
For a related rant, my sister works as a lifeguard at a public pool, and some hot shit fifteen year old girl stole A BIKE from a mentally challenged camper and rode it around the park for the rest of the day. When the girl whose bike was taken (who was only eleven or so) came back with her mom, the little thief’s mother was there to say that the special needs camper had stolen the bike from her daughter’s lawn that morning, and it was really their’s! C’mon! Your the adult for chrissake!
I bet this happens all the time, but once, during PE, my newly bought graphing calculator was stolen. I shouldn’t have left my backpack sitting out; the thieves rummaged through my backpack to steal it. The bastards!
I was pissed, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I even considered installing some sort of animal-trap in my backpack to clamp onto would-be thieves’ filthy hands, but that didn’t seem very practical.
My stepson slept over a a friends house, and brought his X-Box (plus 4 game discs). While sleeping, somebody stole them! What amazed me was the attitude of the kid’s parents! They acted like “our children would never do this”. Anyway, my son’s friend thinks that the boyfriend of one of the girls at the house actually stole the games. She suspects that this boy uses drugs, and sold the loot for money for drugs.
Absolutley apalling little shit-he actually told my wife (with a straight face) that he never saw the stuff!
Wait till he graduates to stealing cars!
Ugh, I HATE theives! When I was sixteen I threw a party with only a dozen of my closest friends. Several of my CDs and some of my best friends. How can your own friends do that to you?
I have a laundry-based thief test, and my neighbors always fail.
I’ve lived in a half-dozen apartment building with a common building laundry room. I leave my detergent in the room. In every single case the detergent has been stolen within two weeks. Even at my new place, which is pretty upscale.
It’s so petty! It’s so despicable! It’s so depressing.
Ergh, I so sympathise with this. It’s just. So. FRUSTRATING.
Mine isn’t nearly on par with the rest of them, but it seemed like a huge deal to me at the time. I went on a trip to Fiji this summer to do some community service in a rural village with a bunch of other mostly-American students. Now, Fiji’s a beautiful place, but this village was three hours away from the closest city (Nadi). After we’d been staying there for two weeks already, living on the blandest carbohydrates, one of the supervisors took it upon himself to procure a duffel bag full of candy and such from a store two hours away. This sort of thing takes on huge significance in an unfamiliar locale far from home among strangers. I bought a bag of candy from him, and in a huge act of will completely against my nature, determined to make it last for a week.
Stupidly, I left it out while I went to do chores. Coming back, I noted the bag was open and… they were all gone. No, wait: there were two left. Of the whole bag that I had not touched, my companions had left me TWO. God, I was so mad I was shaking. I couldn’t speak to anyone the rest of the evening for fear I would start spewing curses upon them and all their ilk.
Upon preview, this seems rather trivial. I swear, it was maddening at the time. At least I feel better for having gotten it out of my system. Phew.
I believe the police had to step in, and since there’s no proof one way or the other as to who owns it, the last I heard no one had it. None of the lifeguards can really confirm this is her bike, as she always hid it before she got to the pool.
Um, I personally wouldn’t think anyone would be dumb enough to leave a box of detergent in the laundry room for two weeks. Ergo, if it’s been sitting there that long, it’s either been abandoned or it’s for common use. And if the place was, as you say, upscale, I would definitely think it was for common use.
Why would you assume that? I would never make such an assumption: I know it’s not MY detergent if I didn’t put it there.
Even if you did assume it was for common use, would you take it away? This was one of those BIG jugs, practically full. It certainly didn’t get used up; and there’s a big trash bin in the room that only gets emptied every couple of months, and it wasn’t thrown away in there.
Yojumbo - Here’s an idea… take your detergent, preferably powdered and put your name on it. Leave it in the laundry room.
Here’s the important part… mix some powdered dye into the detergent and see if anyone thinks stealing your detergent is still a good idea.
We were at a local festival the other day and someone walked off with one of our neighbours shoulder bag. All she lost was $5.00 and a jacket but damn it was maddening.
Just last week, my bicycle was stolen from my driveway. It was probably stupid of me to leave it there like that, but I’d never had trouble doing so in over a year of living here. But stupid or otherwise, IT’S NOT YOURS, THIEF! I HOPE YOU GET CRIPPLED WHILE RIDING IT!
I don’t think it’s a very good idea to set a nasty little ambush, and sign my name to it. Even if I’m justified, they can toss their clothes, so I won’t be able to identify them, and they’ll know exactly who I am. If they are a communally-spirited person :rolleyes:, I wouldn’t want to damage their stuff. If a thief, and mean-spirited to boot, I wouldn’t want to draw any more attention on my more valuable stuff.
