Losing Your Favorite Pipe

[hierophant]

I've searched the house for about an hour for a pipe that was literally in my clench the whole time.

Cosmic, I do that with my glasses all the time, "Where the F are they?" I always find them in the same place...on my face.
Jollyroger that really sucks. I've had no less than 3 cars stolen, so I know the feeling

Are there any tobacco haters in your office?

 

[mso489]

Then again, it may not be a tobacco hater, nor a jollyrodger hater. Psychology claims that some theft is a need to be given "gifts," and that thieving sometimes victimizes people the thief wishes to emulate and admire. The human mind is a complicated place and doesn't always follow reason. That theory fixes nothing, but it is another wrinkle.

 

[jollyroger]

First of all I'd like to thank you all for your sympathy and understanding. Your generosity and empathy are inspiring, and more than I could have ever asked for, short of my pipe back.
Tracing back my steps, and carefully examining my desk space revealed several other oddities, such as slightly opened cabinets, a missing monitor converter. Furthermore several colleagues also reported missing artifacts within 24 hours of my pipe gone missing.

So I set a trap.
I set out a smartphone that belongs to the office on a desk that had not yet been raided, but in close proximity to those that had been. Coincidentally it just so happens that I hacked the living hell out of the phone.

I assumed that the person is technologically literate if he works here, so I even made one of the security measures just evident enough to make the culprit think they managed to neutralize what measures might be in place. He'd be dead wrong and a walking Beacon transmitting audio, video and geolocation, until he completely reinstalled an operating system, and I made that very hard to do.
Now I'm just waiting for it to walk away.

I must state that I'm not out to ruin any lives, and believe in second chances, but I want my pipe back, and find the hunt therapeutic. Also got to learn quite abit about mobile device vulnerabilities which was both fun and frightening.
I will update if there are any developments.

Thank you again for your generosity. Especially fnord, you're an amazing person and I am humbled.

 

[sparrowhawk]

This kind of stuff happened to me on 2 occasions in the past few weeks. Invariably it's a "Purloined Letter" situation. Try the obvious. With a beloved Irish Harp billiard, it was in a waste basket: I knocked it inside when I fell asleep at the dining table. The second time I was searching for a bindered manuscript that represented some of my best writing 20 years ago; after a week of looking, a thunderbolt struck, and I found it--in a file cabinet. Good luck!

 

[lochinvar]

That's rough. I've had a few stolen, though none that were favorites.
Never underestimate what a person is willing to steal. I operate a pay parking lot. For years I had a salvaged piece of OSB I used as a Full sign. This was a decades old piece from a demolished house, a 3'x3' splinter magnet with chipped white paint and my awful hand painted "FULL"....and someone stole it. A totally valueless and extremely ugly item someone just had to have as a souvenir of their trip to Gatlinburg.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I am picturing Jonathon Banks sitting in the booth in "Better Call Saul".... Sorry for your loss. Only straightup vandalism is more frustrating than stealing.

 

[shutterbugg]

You mean you guys don't have your pipes microchipped?!?!