Saturday, April 13, 2013

A-Z April Challenge L is for "The Rest of The Story"

Yesterday Ross celebrated a milestone birthday.   Like I told him, it's not easy to say good bye to 39. :)

We didn't have anything special planned, or I should say I was negligent and didn't have anything special planned.  No excuses, but there are excuses.

The first thing we did on our unplanned day was go for breakfast at the no-Pizza Pizza and bagel shop.  Yeah, they originally planned on it being a pizza and bagel place, then decided not to go the pizza route, but they decided to keep the original name.

It's a cool little place, right next to the post office.  The old men gather there in the morning and solve the world's problems. 

After we finished our breakfast and were lingering on a second cupa,  I received the following e-mail: (I changed the name to protect the probably not so innocent) 

Hello my name is Sarah Jones...I think I have something that belongs to you! Please call us we are in Toms River, 732-xxx-xxxx. If we aren't here just leave a message and a number where we can reach you. :)  Speak to me or Sasha, have a good day.

I must note here that I wrote chapter one to this true story in yesterday's post.  
I will give a brief synopsis here in case you missed it.

Basically, I had my iPad stolen out of my knitting bag at an auction we attended on Thursday night.  The knitting bag was turned in, but the iPad was gone.   How's that for brief?

Okay, back to chapter 2.   

I knew that this aka Sarah had my iPad.  My immediate reaction was to be somewhat suspicious.  Ross had another re-action, over reaction.

He told me about a well-known scam.  Your wallet gets stolen.  Someone calls and tells you that they have your wallet.  They agree to meet you in a public place to return your wallet.  You feel safe, after all it is a public place.  While you are waiting at the pre-determined location, they are at your house with a moving van.

I said pshaw.  I called the number.  A very nice Sarah answered the phone by saying, "I bet you're glad to hear from me."

We agreed to meet, in an hour, at a public place, a Super Shop Rite, two towns over.  She described the car she would be driving and what she would be wearing.  I told her nothing about our car, what we looked like or what we would be wearing. 

Ross was still not comfortable with the whole thing.  

I have to tell you that we live in a guarded, gated community.  To put his mind at ease,  Ross called the guard and told them not to let anyone in.  

We got there about 35 minutes early.  Ross parked in a prime location to provide for optimum, clandestine surveillance.  No kidding.  He did. 

About five minutes before the meeting time, Sarah called me.   She told me that she was running late and needed another 15 minutes.
She also tried to get me to tell her what I looked like.  She and her sister, Sasha, were, of course, also at the same auction.   Apparently, they had an altercation with a woman at the auction.  They wanted, I guess, to make sure I wasn't that woman.  
First she asked me if I was Russian.  I'm not.  Then she wanted to know if I was a skinny blond.  I didn't know how to answer that one.
Funny thing is, I witnessed the altercation.  I knew exactly who Sarah was, what she looked like and where she had been sitting in relation to where our seats were. 

I assured her that I was not the skinny Russian blond woman.

I asked her how she came to have my iPad.  The story that she told me was so unbelievable that I won't  even bother to re-tell it here.  It was ridiculous,  made absolutely no sense and was obviously a lie. 

The rest of the story is kind of boring.  Sarah and Sasha did show up.  I got out of our car, Sarah handed me my iPad.  I said thank-you.  They headed into the Shop Rite to do their weekly grocery shopping. 

One question that Sarah asked before we said good-bye, though, was pretty funny.  She asked me if my husband was the man at the auction who was wearing a pink shirt and eating the biggest piece of chocolate cake in the world.  

He was... wearing pink and eating a huge piece of chocolate cake.   
Everyone turned around when Ross came in with that cake.  Afterwards, one by one, about a dozen people got up to go over to the cafeteria for a piece of that cake. 

Anyway, here's the thing.  I have a question or two.  First how did Sarah get my e-mail address?  Second,  I really would like to know how come Sarah and Sasha had my iPad, but not my knitting bag?  

Theories anyone?

I am participating in the A-Z April Challenge.  
Today's letter is L for  LUCKY?

PS: When we got home all of our prized possessions (or as I like to call it junk stuff) were right where we messily left them.


13 comments:

  1. All I can think of is either they had an attack of the guilty conscious or knew the person who stole it and wanted to protect them while getting you back your property.

    At least you have it back and didn't lose anything else in the process.

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    Replies
    1. That's just the way I felt, Cindy. I was lucky to get it back.

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  2. Sadly, I am with Ross - but I WANT to be as trusting as you are.... and I think its scary that they have your personal information. Do you have any of theirs? like last name? I'd be watching my credit reports. I just checked my ipad. If someone found it, they can open it and get right into my email account. Voila! email address and easy to find financial information. Not a lot but certainly some - especially if you know what you are doing.
    I asked Michael what he thought happened. His reply? "Every time I steal someone's ipad and go to their house, while they are going to meet my girlfriend at the coffee shop, if it turns out to be in a gated community, I don't bother to go in."
    Hmmmmmmmmm-
    Where's a photo of Ross and the cake?

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  3. You know as soon as I found out that my iPad was missing, I started changing all of my passwords. Even though I don't have any e-mail downloading onto my iPad, I looked around and sure enough, just like you said, my email address came right up, when I "clicked" on one of the applications.
    I giggled when I read Michael's response. Funny guy, huh?
    Darn, Ross and the cake, what a missed photo op that was!

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    Replies
    1. He can be quite funny. For some reason, I think Ross and Michael would get along really well.

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    2. Michael wants Ross to share the cake. He would even wear a pink shirt if Ross would share the cake...

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    3. Believe me that piece of cake was big enough for all four of us to share.

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  4. I'm guessing they know who really did take it and were trying to protect them or help them (by distracting you so you could be robbed blind). However, I would still be keeping a close eye on things like email, your iTunes account (if you have one), any financial things that may be linked somehow, etc. Also, changing your passwords is a fabulous idea.

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    Replies
    1. To tell you the truth I never thought to take down their license plate number. I hope that there are no ramifications of this. For some reason I think it will be ok. But, yes, I think changing my passwords was the right thing to do.

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  5. I didn't have a security code on my ipad. Could they have gotten your email address form there? Creepy story in a way, but glad it went okay in the end!

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  6. Hi Andrea, Yes after I got my iPad back I looked around and my e-mail address was readily accessible. I’m glad it went okay too.
    Thanks for visiting.

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  7. My daughter's cellphone was taken in a similar way once. I texted her number and said that the phone had GPS and if I did not hear from the person who had it within half an hour, I would ask the police to trace the phone. The person who called me gave me the most convoluted story about how she had come by the phone. Your story is making me grateful it was just a teenager's cellphone and not something with considerably more personal/financial information on it.

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