an iPad story

I know I'm not very good at telling a story, and this is a long story, but I think you're going to want to stick around. This is a good story. Like once Hollywood hears it, screenplay writers are going to be knocking my door down and Emma Stone is going to beg to play the part of me. (Not cause I'm anything like her, but because it's my blog and I get to chose, and I chose her.)

No, it's probably not that good of a story, but Lifetime Original caliber, at least.

Here goes: 

Christmas 2010, my parents gave each of their children the second best gift they have ever given us (right behind life itself) and that gift was an iPad. Some might argue I liked it a little too much, but we don't need to go there. It was a great gift and I was very appreciative.

September 2011, Greg and I purchased our very first home and the day we moved into it was supposed to be wonderful in every way. It was pretty close, but at the close of the day, we realized that our blessed iPad had been stolen by the movers. It was a sickening feeling, knowing that someone had stolen something of such value, which held a lot of personal information (both of our email, facebook, and Amazon accounts), and right in front of us. After running through the day in our minds, we recalled that it had been used right before they got there and it had been left on the couch, the very first thing they moved. So, they had stolen it right off the bat and small-talked with us throughout the day and accepted a generous tip. You can imagine what was going through our minds: "why didn't I put it away? Or at least put a lock on it? Or install the app that tracks it? How could we have been so dumb?" Greg called the moving company. The owner talked to the guys who had moved our house, they denied it, and the owner believed his guys. The owner told Greg something along the lines of, "You are calling me and my workers liars and I don't appreciate it. The iPad is somewhere in your home and when you find it, I expect you to call and apologize to me." That could have gone better, but we couldn't prove that they had stolen it and there really was nothing to do. So, after a few days of anger, I think we both just got over it. We had changed all of our passwords, so he at least couldn't get anything more from us and moved on. There was no point in being angry about it. We assumed he had sold it or at least wiped it clean. Our iPad was gone for good, either way. It was too expensive of an item, a luxury item at that, for us to simply replace, so we had been put on a forced iPad fast. We've certainly talked about replacing it, but other stuff always comes first. I've re-learned to live my life without it. And well, life without an iPad does in fact go on.

You're all smart enough to figure out that this must not be the end of the story, or I wouldn't be writing about it now. So I'll cut to the chase.

February 7, 2012, Greg got a call from the moving company. "Remember me?... Well, you're not going to believe this, but I have your iPad." He didn't give too many details but what Greg gathered is that although he believed them, he had kept his ears open and someone said something that got back to him and he found that his worker had not only stolen it, but still had it in his possession. He apologized at least a trillion times. He said he was humiliated and embarrassed and felt like his whole reputation was a fraud. He had truly believed in his workers and was shocked to find that one of them could be dishonest. He said, "where can I meet you?" and immediately drove the iPad downtown to hand it off to Greg. It was dead, dead, dead and took at least an hour of charging to even start up, but when it did, it was definitely our iPad and not a thing had been changed. 

Interestingly, it was not our iPad being stolen that prompted a blog post. That kind of stuff unfortunately happens all the time. What prompted the post is what SHOULD happen all the time: honesty at its purist form. This guy was honest to the core. When he believed in his workers, he stuck to that. And when he found out he was wrong, he owned up to it. I'm impressed.

Strangely, I'm more excited that there are still people like this guy out there than to have my iPad back. 

But I'm excited about that, too.