Friday, August 26, 2011

I'm on the case and I WILL find you

The good news: we found a house!  It’s perfect for us, we can *almost* afford it, and we’re moving next week.  (Yikes.  I guess I should be packing, huh?)  Amazingly I saw a listing pop on Craigslist and was the first person to call.  Woohoo!  I’ll post pics as soon as we get there.  Oh, the best part about the new house (other than NOT being the ghetto we currently live in): I will have my very own office!  Squee!!

So, that’s the good news this week.  Now for the bad news: unfortunately we didn’t get out of the ghetto quite quickly enough, as my wallet was stolen last week.  From my house!  Some creep just walked into our house and took it.  I suspect it was one of the neighborhood kids, since they’re always coming to the door to ask if they can borrow something of my son’s.  My guess?  While my son’s back was turned, some kid helped himself to my wallet.  Is it wrong to call a minor an a-hole?   

Even worse was the fact that my entire life was in my wallet.  Of course some cash, though thankfully not a lot!  My driver’s license, insurance info, credit cards, gift cards, receipts, coupons, loyalty cards… it was a very big wallet and it was packed.  After spending 6 hours in line at the DMV and a week on the phone explaining the situation to a million people to get replacement cards, I’m finally almost back to the land of the living now. 

But my saddest loss of all that stuff was my Starbucks cards.  I had two of them that I had just loaded up with over $70.  I was whining about this to my favorite barista yesterday, and she asked, “Did you register the cards online?”  Actually, I had just done that the day before they were stolen.  Good timing, huh?  “In that case,” she told me, “you can call Starbucks and they can send you new gift cards for the balance.”  Awesome!  I knew there was a reason I’m a loyal Starbucks drinker.

The first thing I do when I get home is call Starbucks and tell them the cards were stolen.  Sadly, the woman on the phone looks them up and then tells me that the cards have already been drained of all funds.  Whoever took my wallet has been seriously chugging the lattes.  The little caffeinated a-hole.  So I ask her if there is any way she can tell where they were used – thinking that might give me a clue as to who took them.  “I can do better than that,” she tells me.  “All of our stores have video surveillance.  If you file a police report, we can release the footage and exact times the card was used.”  Oh em gee – double awesome!

So, I call the police department and they send out Officer Hottie (seriously, he was so adorable) who takes my statement and opens a case.  He’s really excited about the Starbucks lead, and says he’ll let me know as soon as they get the footage.  I can’t wait!  I hope I get to go down to the station to view it!  I’m so psyched to have an actual clue to an actual crime.  Seriously, don’t steal from a mystery writer.  ;) 

I’ll definitely let you guys know how it plays out.  In the meantime… back to packing… 


~Trigger Happy Halliday

10 comments:

emmad said...

how cool that they can provide video footage. Hope you recognize them.

krisgils33 said...

good luck! sounds like a good premise for a romance novel!! :-)

Sarah S. said...

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Sarah S. said...

Sorry, total iPhone fail! Anyways I was going to say that's a bummer that you're wallet got stolen and I hope you get the punk. There is nothing wrong with calling him an a-hole, if anything I think you were being kind. The good thing is you got to meet officer hottie, I'm sure you could use this in some way for another book. :)

Gemma Halliday said...

Thanks everyone! I'm emailing Officer Hottie today to see when I can look at the footage. I can't wait!

Anonymous said...

Awesome! Well, not awesome, because your wallet was stolen, but awesome they can find out who used it and nail him. Whoohoo!

Tori Lennox said...

That's a shame about your wallet but how cool about Starbucks! Hope you get to see the footage!

bibliojunkies said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bibliojunkies said...

Wow, I'm not really sure which emotion to go with here. Saying "Cool" doesn't seem appropriate, but it is awesome that you found the lead for the police. Good luck!

~Shel

Linda McDonald said...

I've been out of town and have not had much internet access, so I'm catching up and just read your post Gemma. Wow! While it sucks that your wallet was taken in the first place, it's cool that you have a lead. Yay for Starbucks!