stolen bag update
ok, scratch what i said about finding the bag and feeling better towards my cousin. the bag my grandma found was the baby's diaper bag. i should've known... so i take back the semi-nice things i said about my cousin. and i'm even more ticked off than before because i got all excited and was about to give my aunt my school address, only to find that my chain's been yanked once again.
*thumbs down* to obnoxious, selfish people. i hope you're happy Steph.
that said...
after all of that nonsense, there's finally good news! if my 14 year old brother Conor back home would remember to give people phone messages i would've known on Sunday and wouldn't have built up so much anger towards my cousin. she hasn't gained my trust back by any means, but at least now i don't quite as much think she's this mean, heartless, selfish punk. my mom just called and said that they found my bag. i'm not sure if they looked in it to see if everything was still in there, but at least they found it and most of it's probably there, even if the cash isn't. my cousin knew i was upset about it, and she knew i'd figure out it was her, and i'm glad she did the right thing and returned it. they found the bag back in the laundry room with her dogs, and i know i searched there. plus the whole thing with the cell phone still proves it was NOT in the house when we looked. she must have put it back there and then said "oh look! i found it!" stupid jerk. i'm still really ticked, but at least she had the decency to return it. i will never trust her again, and that's her problem. hope she can live with the fact that her own family members don't trust her. i'm just so relieved that i'm getting everything back. thanks for the comments though, guys. i guess i was just supposed to learn a lesson from all this. i've learned two - one, you can't trust anyone, not even family (sad, i know, but this whole thing has made me just a tad bit more paranoid), and two, to be patient and let things work out. *sigh* i'm so glad i don't have to get a new social security card and i can reacitivate my cell phone without having to buy a new one, and all my CDs are coming back! yay! i don't just have to live without it all. :)
long, frustrating weekend
i swear, the forces of chaos just have my number. my first semester of college, i was lazy and started late, but i learned from that mistake. my second semester, i thought school started a week later than it actually did, and ended up missing the first day or two of classes, but i won't do that again. my third semester, the airport tried to screw me over and everything that could go wrong did. fortunately i don't think that will happen again either. this time, i thought everything was gonna be just fine. i packed early and didn't leave anything behind, i'm a week AHEAD of schedule because i started work this week, and everything was going just fine. we left on Saturday and spent the night at my aunt's house in northern Utah, and we were going to start off again for here in Idaho at around noon on Sunday. i left my messenger bag at my aunt's house while we went to church, and it has my wallet, cell phone, all my CDs, my CD player, a necklace my friend gave me for Christmas, my watch, my class ring, a dagger (for display only!) the same friend gave me on Friday night, and some other, not as important stuff. i had to bring my grandma home and go back for my mom because we only had three seats in the van at the time, what with all my brother's and my stuff packed in for college. when i got back to my aunt's house the first time, the bag was right where i'd left it. i was going to grab it and my mom's duffle bag and we were going to leave straight from picking up my mom. i wish i had, but there's nothing for it now. as it is, i left them there because i remembered my mom had originally said we were going to come back and visit for a bit before leaving. now, my cousin had been out of town for a week and left her baby with my aunt so she could "get away for awhile." (that makes me mad because moms don't get vacation. not like that. she expects to just leave her baby with her mom whenever she feels like it. anyways, that's just to show you what kind of person she is.) so anyways, my cousin has been known to steal stuff in the past, even from her own family, and that includes running up $500 (or was it $5000?) on my grandma's credit card not long ago. another long story in itself, but i left my bag because i thought she wouldn't be back from her "vacation" yet, so i thought it would be safe because she wasn't there to steal it. the bag was there when i left to get my mom, and during the ten minutes i was gone, my cousin's brothers say she came back, told them she was leaving to get baby food, and left again, arriving just after we did at my aunt's house. i didn't notice for awhile, but the bag was gone. as we were about to leave for Idaho, i went to grab it and noticed that it was missing. knowing that my wallet and cell phone were in there, we couldn't just leave and get the bag back later, so we went to the care center where we had visited my grandpa to see if i might have forgotten and left it there. looked everywhere, it wasn't there. came back to the house, looked everywhere, it wasn't there. went back to the care center again, one of the administrators helped us search, and we left instructions with them as to whom to return it to if it was found. then we went back to the house again, and my brother finally remembered that my phone was in it, and he started calling it from his cell. we didn't hear it in the car, so we kept calling it as we went throughout the house. i started panicking because i thought for sure someone had picked it up at the care center and made off with it, and my fears seemed confirmed when my phone started going straight to my voicemail without ringing, meaning someone had to have turned it off. we couldn't hang around town anymore, because by this time we were two hours later than we originally planned to leave. we stopped by the bank and my mom emptied my bank account into hers, then we called the bank and told them to freeze the card and alert us if someone tried to use it. we called Verizon and told them to suspend my cell phone for thirty days until we could sort it out, and they activated their trackers in case someone tried to turn it on and use it. my bank card, my driver's license, my social security card, my insurance card, EVERYTHING...gone. just like that. as we left town, i called the police and filed a report in case it turned up, but the further we got from there, the more i realized what really happened. i called my aunt and she confirmed it. she had gone to church before i got back with my mom, and i asked her if she had seen the bag, and she said she saw it right before she left for church, right where i'd left it. the fact that it wasn't there when we got back tells me there's only one person who could have done it. my cousin. when she left for "baby food," i'm sure she grabbed my bag and made an excuse to leave. neither of her brothers saw her, they just heard her come in, tell them she was leaving, and leave again. her boyfriend must have turned my phone off when it kept ringing and annoying him, and he probably had no idea the bag was stolen. he assumed it was my cousin's or her friend's or something.
obviously, i'm really pissed off. i can't prove it, and unless her mom has gotten over "not wanting to lose" her daughter, which so far hasn't been the case since my cousin continues to get herself in trouble, i won't see my stuff ever again. luckily for my cousin, she didn't cost me my on-campus job. if she had, i wouldn't be writing to you right now because i'd be on my way to her house to throttle her in her sleep. (ok, not really, i'm not like that, but i would be calling her mom and telling her flat-out that this has to end now.) see, in order to get the job, they needed either my social security card or my birth certificate. they wouldn't accept copies, so my dad had to overnight FedEx my birth certificate for 30 freakin' dollars!!! i still need a driver's license, but for now i can work without it. a "traveler's license" is on its way, and my new bank card is as well. so basically, it's not really my wallet that i'm ticked off about, even though there was a good $20 or more in it. my dad offered to pay for a new cell phone since he really wants me to have one now, so i don't need that back, either. i'm pretty upset about my CDs, because we're talkin ALL my CDs. i have none to listen to and i didn't finish copying most of them to my playlist. i do have a lot of music on my laptop though, so i can live without the CDs and they can be replaced slowly but surely. CD player is not too big a deal, because again, i have my lappy. i'm mad about my class ring, and mad about the necklace and dagger. those three things i CAN live without, but they are REALLY special to me and can't really be replaced. i'm giving my aunt a few days to try to reason with her daughter and do things the easy way. after that, we're doing it the hard way. she may think she got away with it, but i know she did it and she won't convince me otherwise. she's a liar and a thief, has been for quite a while so it's not like i have no reason to suspect her. she has messed with the wrong family member this time. i'm not just going to let it go.
cell phones and other nonsense
hah i just realized that was the title of an email an old friend of mine sent to me not long ago. awesome.
so, i got a cell phone. FINALLY! :D <--- (very happy smiley) i guess i should start at the beginning of that story though. see, awhile back, my mom was helping my brother's 5th grade class fill their "ammunition sacks" with water balloons for an Oregon Trail project. she had a Nextel phone in her pocket as she did so...or so she thought. as she was reaching from the bucket to the bags, she all of a sudden felt something quite solid that was obviously not a water balloon. lol, her poor, half-drowned phone took days to dry out, during which time we discussed what we'd do if it didn't recover. the Verizon family ShareTalk plan came up, and we were decided. even though her phone did end up working again, her two-year agreement with them was up last month anyway, so we were able to start a new plan without paying early-termination fees, so my dad (though a little begrudgingly) decided to let my brother and i have our own phones. :D so now i have an LG VX3300 flip phone...not the coolest cell around, but not bad either. i only have to pay $10 per month, plus the $20 activation fee, plus i already paid for the phone itself. sa-weet.
in other news, i went on a "date" with my dad today to see Batman Begins. i must say, it was the best Batman movie yet, hands down. Christian Bale played an excellent Bruce Wayne/Batman, Michael Caine was a great Alfred, and Gary Oldman played a really good Commissioner Gordon (although i guess he only attained Lieutenant by the end of this one *shrug*). i think what surprised my most about Gary Oldman though is that i finally realized why i recognized him. he played Sirius Black in the Prisoner of Azkaban! hardly recognizable though, what with how messed up he looked in the Harry Potter movie. he was also the evil doctor in the newer Lost in Space movie, and the bad guy from Air Force One. eeenteresting.
wow...look at the time! almost two in the morning, and i have to be up at 8 for church. better go sleep now.
