While I was at work on Friday, I put my hand up to my neck to touch my necklace....and it was gone! This wasn't the first time with that particular necklace. It's had a bit of a dodgy clasp for a while but I usually catch it sliding off my neck. Not this time - I hadn't felt a thing. I quickly retraced my steps all through the library and to the few places on campus I had been to that day. Nothing. I checked the library's lost property and the main uni lost property. Still nothing.
I was furious. It wasn't that the necklace was particularly valuable. In fact, I made it myself, it was one of the first pieces I made when I first started beading a few years ago. All it consisted of was a number of wooden beads, mostly of different shades of pink. I could make another one and, in fact, could probably make a better one. It probably looks like a piece of cruddy old junk to anyone else but I made it and happened to like it and it went with a number of my tops.
The point is that someone must have found it lying on the ground and decided to keep it for themselves...that's what I was mad about. The fact that they didn't actually take it off my body or out of my bag doesn't matter....if you pick up something and keep it, rather than hand it in to lost property it's still STEALING.
It's not the first time this has happened either. A few years ago, Emma held her 21st in Kings Park and my mobile phone went missing. I'm not sure whether it was stolen out of my bag or if it fell out and someone kept it, nevertheless it was still stolen. We went straight back and retraced our steps when I realised it was missing but to no avail. The Kings Park lost property people and the cops hadn't seen it either. I was also furious that night because I'd just finished uni and didn't have a job. The last thing I wanted to spend my money on was a new phone.
That's why I feel so happy when I see people being honest and doing the right thing. At the library, we get students handing in laptops, mobiles, wallets, jewellery, USB drives and other valuables that have been carelessly left lying around by their owners. They could have chosen to keep them but no, they chose to hand it in to lost property. When they hand this stuff in, I tell them 'THANK YOU'.
You might ask where to draw the line regarding what to hand in and what to keep. For instance, most people wouldn't hand in twenty cents but they would hand in a wallet (you hope). I don't know where to draw the line but the basic principle is - HAND IT IN.
I think my necklace falls into the 'hand it in' category. Since I made it, I'm sure there's no other like it and if I see it on someone's neck, I'm gonna rip it straight off :\
A photo I had of myself wearing the necklace.
Me, my cousin Romeny and Uncle Merv at my birthday last year. 21st May 2006.
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