I used to think that bloggers seemed to post about ridiculous amounts of suffering in their lives. Back then I assumed that this was simply due to exaggeration and making the sorrow up out of thin air. Now I have a completely new theory. Owning a blog causes suffering.
Anybody who has been glancing at my blog on a regular basis knows that particularly the last year of my life has been filled with suffering. Horrible things seem to keep happening to me, usually without any sort of good reason. What is the most recent horrific thing that has happened to me? Yesterday, my laptop was stolen.
Our story begins at 14:28. I was heading to my Theatre Practicum class (the class that makes it so that I get absolutely no lunch break on Thursdays), and I dropped off my belongings in the Green Room (for those of you who don't know what a green room is, it is kind of a break room next to the theatre for the actors and crewmembers who are working on a play). The room was basically empty except for a black male in baggy clothing who was sleeping on the couch that was in the room.
I signed into the practicum sign-in book and started my work. First I was wiring on a new plug for a lamp, and then I was working on removing some fabric from a chair that was going to be reupholstered for the play. I did not get very far on removing this fabric when one of the other actors from the play came down and pulled me out of practicum because I was needed up in rehearsal. I followed her up there and proceeded to rehearse Act II of the play for the next couple hours.
At 17:29 I was rushing back downstairs to get my belongings because my next class was to begin at 17:30. When I entered the Green Room I noticed that my backpack had moved. I had left it on the counter immediately to the left of the coffee pot. It had been moved to the floor next to the table, positioned between the last chair on the right hand side of the table (from the perspective of the door) and the chair at the foot of the table.
The zippered pouch in the rear of the bag (the pouch designated for the laptop) had been unzipped all of the way and the laptop removed from it. None of the other compartments (including the one that contained the power adaptor to charge the laptop's battery) had been removed from the backpack.
After fretting in the green room on the couch for a few minutes I went down the hallway to the College Police Department to file a report. The window where these type of things are normally done was closed, as apparently the reception window for the police department closes at 17:00. There was a number on the door and I called it immediately. A few minutes later the door to the right of that window opened and the Sergeant came out to take my information.
After taking down the general information on the case he turned it over to a Corporal. Corporal Missildine escorted me back down to the Green Room where I recounted the story for him in the presence of the Director of the play who had come down to the Green Room when she heard about my plight, and several other members of the production staff.
I returned down to the police station with Corporal Missildine where I submitted a written statement which the Sergeant notarized. The Corporal filed a police report and they told me I needed to get hold of the Serial Number of the laptop so they can get it entered into a national database of stolen goods as quickly as possible. I rushed home and went for the box that the laptop was shipped in. The box contained a packing slip which I then rushed back to the police station at the school.
The Packing slip contained the Service ID Code that was on the bottom of the laptop that I had to use every time I called Dell for any sort of Technical Support. The Police Station said that this unique code that was on the bottom of the laptop was not enough, so I called Dell and waited on hold for an hour, only to be told that the Service Tag WAS the Serial Number and now there is a number of other things I'm going to have to do with Dell as well to report the laptop Stolen.
Sufficient to say, yesterday was not a good day. This entry is being written from David's computer while he is away at school since I no longer have a computer I can use to post.