Okay, guys. Here's the story in which my own forgetfulness DEFINITELY plays a role. I was in Illinois visiting my family members who live out there, and I went thrifting at some Goodwill stores with my Nana. I found some stuff I wanted to try on at all of them, but there were no fitting rooms in any of them, so we would just buy stuff and bring it to the house to try on later. In the last Goodwill, I found some clothes I really wanted to try on to see if they would fit, and there were two bathrooms in the back of the store. Which you are NOT supposed to use as fitting rooms, by the way, but honestly? I actually didn't care. And anyways, it's not like there were security guards standing next to the bathrooms to stop me. So, I went into one of them and set my phone on the sink counter so I didn't have to put it on the dirty floor. I tried on the clothes, then left the bathroom. I totally forgot about my phone. I went on shopping and everything, and when we were done and we had gotten in the car, I FINALLY noticed. I said, "I FORGOT MY PHONE IN THE BATHROOM!!!" then proceeded to get out of the car, run into the store, almost knock an old lady over like a bowling pin, and sprint to the bathroom. It wasn't there. I ran out of the bathroom to the front counter and asked them to make an announcement. They asked what type of phone it was, but I didn't remember. I said, "I don't know! Just make an announcement looking for a phone with a flowered phone case!" The guy picked up the radio and made an announcement. I ran around like a lunatic, asking everyone I saw if they had seen it, and if they heard ringing or saw someone with it to tell me. I ran back to the front and asked the guys at the front if anyone had turned it in, and they all said no. I then saw the man I think was the theif. He walked quickly, nothing in his hands, past the registers toward the door. The clerk nearest to me said to him, "Sir, have you seen-" "Nope." the man interrupted him and left quickly. My family looked at the location about 2 minutes later and saw that the phone was on the move. Someone had taken it. We got in the car and followed the location. We finally ended up in a parking lot, and the location was right where we were standing. The location didn't move any more, and so we looked in the windows of the surrounding vehicles to see if it was inside. Nope. My Nana called the police to report the phone as stolen. We waited awhile, and we made an educated guess: the theif had felt the vibration of the ringing in their pocket and shut the phone off. (My mom had tried calling my phone to see if it would make sound, but I'm pretty sure my ringtone was off) We waited for the police FOREVER. They took too long, so we left and started driving back to Nana's house. Just about a minute later, we drove past the police car on its way to the parking lot, but we didn't turn around. Nana said, "He has my phone number if he wants to contact us." And so we went home. At Nana's, my dad reported the phone as stolen on the missing and stolen objects website. We still haven't heard anything. They most likely went to one of the data centers in the mall across the street and had the workers wipe it of data so they could sell it or use it themselves, although everything on the phone was blocked so they can't use it, even if they wiped the data. I'm getting a new phone very soon, and I'm hoping all of my data and texts, especially my texts with Gemini, were actually saved, because I'm working on writing a story about Hornet and Lace's adventures after the destruction of Pharloom. The story is about the game Hollow Knight: Silksong, in case some of you don't know the game. (I have a Google Account, so hopefully everything is on there, so we can transfer the data to my new phone) If it's not saved, then I will never be able to get it back and I will be very sad. I really, really hope that the conversations marked as 'Archived' save, because that conversation was Archived. I'm super pissed that some idiot decided to keep the phone instead of being an nice human and returning it, but since it won't work for them, it'll make them mad, and that makes me happy to know I've gotten back at them, and also wasted some of their money since they probably paid to get it wiped. Bye-bye, stupid person's money! Enjoy your trip down the drain. ? And I guess I learned my lesson. I used to steal stuff from other people, but now that I know how it feels to be stolen from, I'm never doing that again and have returned everything I took. Silently of course, so I wouldn't get in trouble, but I returned it! And I also know that whoever stole my phone is now in denial because it clearly wasn't worth: -Anxiety of sneaking it out of the store with possible beeping and guranteed vibrating -Avoiding suspicion -Probably trying to guess the password -Having all access blocked -Being normal at the data store, like the device wasn't stolen
