stolen property

i keep a small wallet at work to hold a couple of dollar bills and some coins to take down to our cafeteria for lunch every day (at most i pay like $.50 for lunch so i never bring my full purse or wallet.) i always keep a couple of dollar bills in there and replenish whenever it's empty. i leave it at my cube on my desk all the time, since i don't keep a lot of money in it and have never had problems before.

yesterday, i went down to the cafeteria and decided to get something that would cost money. i reach into my wallet, and lo and behold, all money is gone. i was a little confused but didn't think *too* much about it because it wasn't a lot of money. though i knew my coworker had mentioned that he thought his earphones were stolen Thursday night (it was obviously stolen. he's one of those people who keep his cube super clean, and stuff on his desk was messed around and a wire was dangling where his earphones used to connect to), i still didn't think much about it.

this morning, another coworker told me her umbrella that she keeps in her cube was gone, which she noticed last night when it was raining and she had no umbrella anymore. it was new, maybe a week old.

even between the three of us, we didn't think much of it. maybe a strong coincidence? i didn't want to report it because what if it was all in our heads? i'm positive my coworker's earphones were stolen, but what if the rest of us went searching for things that were "stolen" when they really weren't? and the earphones was the first incident that sent a catalyst to the rest of us? i was almost 100% confident that i had money in my wallet, but what if it fell out somewhere (though it's never fallen out before)? things like that were going through my head.

but then another coworker mentioned that two target gift cards she'd left in her cube were also stolen, which she noticed monday when she tried to take it home to use it. she left the gift cards in her cube since christmas, and she didn't know that we had stuff stolen, so she didn't say anything because she had no idea when it disappeared (somewhere between Christmas and Monday) until she tried to finally use them on monday.

that was enough to get all of us to report it, to which security came to us almost immediately to question all of us. it felt a little ridiculous to report that $5 was stolen from me... or for my coworker, an umbrella, or for my other coworker, earphones... but collectively... it's a bit suspicious, don't you think?

anyway, we'll see what happens...