Asklemmy

In maybe third grade I brought my collection of x-men trading cards as part of a sort of show and tell activity. It was in a sizable three-ring binder with those 3x3 slot cars sheets. I had a number of highly valued "foil/hologram" cards. The binder was gone when I got back from lunch. I was devastated and learned to never leave anything of value not locked up if I'm not watching it.

At work we have a kitchen/break room. I've had shit stolen from there a lot. Utensils, cups, bowls. Wash it after lunch, put it in the drying rack, come back in an hour to get it and it's gone. Once my department had a leftover pizza from an event donated to us. I brought in a baking sheet to reheat it in the oven for a lunch morale boost for the team because we had to work that weekend. The sheet, left in a drawer and not visible to any casual observers, was gone by Monday. That was actually the first item I'd had stolen there but I thought I was just s fluke.

I've literally bought upgrades and utensil sets for the kitchen (maybe people "stealing" my utensils just forgot to bring a fork, borrowed mine, and brought it home by accident?). Stuff like drying towels, soap dispensers + large refill bottles, a microwave food cover... all stolen. I'd keep getting frustrated with, for example, people leaving the sponge wet in the sink. I'd think "its been a year since I last donated something, maybe it'll be different this time..." and I'd buy an OXO sponge holder or something and within a week it would be gone. Everyone in my office, including secretaries and cleaning staff, gets paid at least a living wage with great health benefits. Some make well over 100k. I just imagine someone making twice my salary seeing a nice soap dispenser and taking it home... lost a good bit of faith in humanity and affected me way more than it should have.

I found a solution though. Whoever was stealing this shit couldn't deal with the shame of being reminded that they stole it. I started labeling the donated items using my organization's acronym with a permanent marker in big visible letters. None of that's been stolen. I was going to engrave my utensils/dishes but decided instead to look like an asshole and bring my own towel when washing my dishes, drying them immediately, and taking them back to my desk immediately.

Probably not what you were looking for but this week i had cheese curds stolen at work out of the work fridge. Could only have been 1 of 23 people. Won't ever find out who. I can be reasonably sure it wasn't half of them, can't accuse anyone since im a manager and the company response is basically don't use the fridge if you don't want to have things stolen

I was a kid once and heard a group of kids following me. I was trick or treating.

Heard them coming up behind me and was expecting them to attack me. Instead one of them just grabbed by bag of candy and ran off.

I started to go after them but my friends stopped me and said with all the solemnity a 7 year old could muster, “let it go”.

They shared their candy with me.

I took my bike out for a trail ride, decided to stop at home for a quick refill of water before going out again. I was in my house for under 3 minutes and my bike was stolen from my enclosed front porch.

Reported it with serial number to the police and a stolen bike website but never heard anything back.

I was in college and had to start leaving for classes 20 minutes earlier. I was pretty angry at the time. Now l'll never leave a bike out of my sight unless it's locked indoors or with two U-locks.

People broke into our house while we were upstairs with our 1 week old baby, at 1am. They took our keys and our car. We have 4 kids. No way to get them to school or me to work.

Turned out they were aged between 15 and 17 and got a slap on the wrist. We got an insurance payout and a different car.

Ridiculous.

About 20 years ago, when I was in middle school, some high schoolers stole a game (Halo for xbox) from me while I was walking home. I had borrowed it from someone at school.

I don't think I have, but I'm always mildly irked by broke people stealing from other broke people instead of from people that can afford to replace the stolen whatever.

I used to steal food from the local big chain supermarket.

Yeah, about five minutes ago. It happens. I'd rather extend trust and sometimes be disappointed than live in paranoia.

An umbrella...

Some fellow student named Jordan did it years ago...

I'm still pissed and wondering where wtf he lives

We were on holiday at a camp ground when I was child. I had my Nintendo DS with me and I think during this vacation I even bought a carrying case and some games for it with my own money. During the day we would ride bycicles to other places so I left it in the tent buried under some stuff. One day when we came back i could not find it. At first I thought it could be stolen or my dad tried to hide it from me, because I played with it quite a lot which he wasn'ta fan of. So I tried to look through his stuff without him noticing to find it. But i didn't find it and since i am quite reserved i didnt want to bring it up that it was missing.

In the end I think someone at that camp ground must have seen me use it and then waited for us to leave to steal it, since nothing else was stolen.

After that every time someone asked me why I wasn't playing as much as before I told them that I didn't feel like it. And I'm not sure whether they figured it out to this day.

Someone stole my car's owner manual.

my father gave me a lesson once when my bike was stolen when i was a child. he told me that they did it because they felt they had to; not because they wanted to target me and that remaining angry about it was unproductive because they will never know nor care.

i try to apply that same lesson every time someone wrongs me.

Back in primary school someone stole one of my bakugan out of my bag. It was the snake trap which folded into a cylinder instead of a sphere like the normal ones. So sad.

Bikes. It's always bikes

Not mine but from me and it sucks a little. I had a great pair of safety boots, very understandable that they would go missing. I don't have a locker as I don't need one, still a little surprised they went missing.