I’ve never been a person who locked all the windows and doors before bed. Or kept doors locked when I was home.
In fact, when I rented my place out in Latrobe, I couldn’t even find a house key for the new tenants.
Then I moved to Australia. I locked everything because people told me to. Gradually, I became a bit slack.
I’ve never had anything stolen, except for a Lands End canvas bag which was stored in my classroom at Lindfield Public School.
And I know who did it. There was a student who caused a lot of trouble. His mother volunteered in the canteen and she was a mousey thing, without personality or presence. Her son was a big boy, more than mischievous, a bit of a problem student, who, we later found out was being beaten by his father. This was not known at the time he attended the school. He took my bag. Some sort of sick revenge.
So for over 50 years, without locking everything up, I had one item stolen.
Now that I live in Fort Lauderdale, nothing much has changed.
Except for my Fels Naptha Soap bars. I can’t seem to hold on to them.
We use a communal laundry here and I wash my clothes once a week or so. And I ususally have stains. And I use a bar of Fels Naptha soap to rub into the stains before the clothing is washed. Sometimes I forget to put the soap bar into the my laundry basket to tote back to my unit and when I returned to the laundry, it is gone. How? I looked between machines, behind machines, in corners and even peek into the garbage can. The soap has disappeared.
Oh, well. I replaced it and a month or two later, a repeat. The Fels Naptha soap was left in the laundry room and disappeared. Disappeared in a matter of hours.
Now in our laundry room there are a few articles left behind, like one black sock, a baby bib, one undershirt. Nobody bothers them. They stay there for weeks. But my Fels Naptha Soap? Gone before nightfall. A blue towel neatly folded on the shelf has been there for 3 weeks and it’s much more valuable than my used bar of soap. But it is still there and I have to buy more Fels Naptha.
Yes, it is entirely my fault because I am careless.
I realize that. But stealing bars of Fels Naptha Soap? An inexpensive item like that? I don’t get it.
Anyhow, I logged on to Amazon to order more and will put this bar into my pocket after use and see if I can hang onto it for a while.
Stealing Fels Naptha Soap? It has ruined my lifetime record of only one theft in 60 years. Now I’m up to three thefts and I still don’t always lock my doors.