If you know me, you've probably endured one story or another about how I've at some point lost something valuable and ended up in a weird and complicated situation as I try to get it back. It seems to happen to me on the regs, and I'm always only partly to blame! This season's ridiculous situation has just been resolved, so I thought I'd share with you the complex and emotional roller-coaster of...
THE MYSTERIOUS INCIDENT OF THE BLIND MAN AND MY PHONE
For the sake of accuracy, I should probably clarify that the Blind Man is the man who fixed my blind (he's not blind). One night about a month ago, I shut my blind (with *apparently* too much enthusiasm) and it got stuck. In a vain attempt to help me, my friend tried to fix it (with too much enthusiasm) and it broke in half. This led to me living three long days in darkness before I summoned the courage to tell my landlady, who told me I had to pay to fix it.
So she rang up the man (= the Blind Man), and he came to fix it. He wasn't blind, he just fixes blinds, and to be honest he wasn't really a man, he was a teenager. When he was done I paid him and wished him a happy weekend, all smiling and waving and seeing him out the house. Then, after he left, I couldn't find my phone. Now as I say, this happens a lot, so at first I didn't suspect the grotty little blind man, I just assumed I'd left it somewhere around about the house and I started searching. But when I couldn't find it in any of the obvious places I started to suspect Foul Play.
If you've ever had something stolen then you know its very upsetting, especially if you don't know if you've lost it or not. Especially when you're like, who would actually steal an iPhone 3? When you are working? From somebody's bedroom? Its just too risky, right? You'd have to be a total buffoon to do that. For some reason I'd assumed this guy wasn't a total buffoon, so I couldn't believe he'd steal it. I searched for like two weeks and cancelled the phone and got STRESSED and cried a bit and then got a bit angry and wound myself up and said, right, I'm going to make my landlady call this guy and get my phone back! And then when I actually spoke to my landlady I totally chickened out because - and this is one thing I've learnt from this experience - I do not think I like confrontation. So I ended up having a lot of those conversations where you start out by saying "I THINK SOMEBODY ROBBED ME!" and you end by saying "well, maybe I just lost it somewhere and its my fault probably." Because imagine accusing somebody of robbing you and then finding the very same phone under your pillow three weeks later after he's lost his job and you've lost your dignity?
So finally I ended up at the agency who arranged my accommodation, and they rang the blind company (which incidentally is called
La Casa de Las Persianas in Santa Cruz and I'm not going to recommend them or warn you away from them, I'm just gonna tell you the FACTS!!). The man at the agency told me I had to be 100% sure that this
chico had stolen the phone, to which I replied, "can we be 100% sure of anything in life?" This was a question which had really been bothering me in relation to the phone loss. However the man at the agency wasn't keen to delve into any philosophical reflections on the matter. He rang the company and said "she is 100% sure he took the phone. She's going to report him to the police unless she gets it back today."
Now, I was doubtful about the whole thing but it turned out, two hours later I got a phone call from a lady with an Andalucian accent thicker than your mum's chest hair, and she said they'd "found the phone". Turns out that she was the owner of the blind company, and cute little boy who fixed my blind is her son. So instead of going to watch the latest Hunger Games film with all my friends, I ended up in the most socially awkward situation to date, which was waiting at a cross roads in Seville by an old Roman aqueduct to meet the mother of the person who robbed me. How do you think I acted in that situation? Did I give her a good what-for? Did I question her morals? Did I insult her son? Turns out I hid all my valuables and then cheerfully said "thanks!" and smiled and ran away. Not really a Boss Bitch way to deal with things but at least I had the phone!!
I would have considered the whole thing basically sorted by then, but when I got the phone home and charged it, I realised that this BOY, who claims he "found the phone on the street", had thrown out my SIM card, deleted every single thing from my phone except for one photo of a vintage car (Weird.) and had been using the phone for his own Instagram, Twitter, Whats app, texts, games... basically everything apart from Facebook which he had left logged into my Facebook. He'd added his photos, his contacts, had been chatting to his friends and girlfriend via what's app, emailing his teachers and using his Instagram. The audacity!!! On MY PHONE I have what's app conversations between him and his girlfriend! I don't know why I wasn't expecting this, but it was like until that point I kind of thought he had just accidentally taken the phone. And when I realised he had purposefully taken it for his own personal use, I. was. so. mad! I had lost everything that made the phone valuable to me, including photos from graduation and one of my mum in a onesie with a face mask on. Those photos are irreplaceable!! And no, obviously didn't have them backed up. You know why? Because I'm a total buffoon!
And all this after how stressed I'd been, and how it had cost me money to cancel the phone and contact my family. The inconvenience!! The injustice!! And I'd PAID him for his services! So I started to think, what should I do? I put a status on Facebook asking my morally rigorous friends, do I forgive or seek revenge? Only one person said forgive. Everyone else was quite enthusiastic about the revenge. But revenge isn't very Christian, and it's also probably illegal, so I decided to explore other options. My landlady was a bit worried about the whole thing, and volunteered to take me to the shop to get my money back for the blind repair.
This is how I ended up in the New Most Awkward Social Situation Yet... when we got to the shop, the mother was there again, and she was very unhappy. She pointed at me and called me a liar, which was frightening, and made me question if I was wrong or not. Apparently he'd told her this elaborate story of how he'd found the phone, and I think she had
chosen to believe it, and there was such a mix up of the truth and confusing half-truths and lies that I was getting confused. But I reminded myself, its YOUR phone (actually, its my sister's lol) and he destroyed your intellectual property and presumably swallowed my SIM card! So I said that I wasn't lying, and she rang her son and he came over.
This was the best bit of the whole experience, because I got to tell him off. I told him all about how awful it had been, and he looked at his shoes and tried to give some chicken liver excuses that were total bullshit and I felt like I'd really got it off my chest. But he wouldn't pay me the money back, and neither would the shop owner. In the end I saw him a couple of days before Christmas, after I tracked him down on what's app. He gave me a bit of the money back and said he didn't have anymore, and I felt sorry for him because it's Christmas and maybe he needs to buy Christmas presents. Also he was acting a bit pathetic and he can't spell in Spanish.
Overall meeting my robber was quite a positive experience as I felt I could explain to him what he'd done, and maybe he won't do it agian. But I still have all his info on my phone...
THE MORALS OF THE STORY (For anybody who's made it to the end)
1. Don't leave your valuables out when strangers are about
2. Don't trust anybody
Tara
xx
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