Something Stolen

24Jan/110

I lost my phone recently and the whole experience has been a nightmare.

Last week I went to visit a buddy of mine who is a teacher and also assistant coach of the basketball team at a junior high school. I wanted to do a video interview of him because I thought it was very interesting how he made the switch from the corporate world to becoming a teacher and would make a good story.

I visited him during practice hours in the evening. When I got there I put my jacket down on the bleachers and set up my camera equipment. I recorded a bunch of practice footage and planned to do my interview after it ended. As practice was ending, it dawned on me a little too late that I had my phone in my jacket and that my jacket was on the bleachers, where the kids on the bench were sitting at.

At that point I already knew my phone was gone. A physical inspection of my jacket as well as my bags confirmed that my phone was missing.

Losing my iPhone was not like losing any other phone I have ever owned. I have never been a phone person and never cared whenever my phone went missing. If my phone never turned up, worst case scenario would be to buy a new phone.

The first big difference with an iPhone is price. This thing is fucking expensive.

The next big difference between losing my iPhone and losing some plain old flip phone is the level of attachment I developed towards my phone. Everything from the apps I installed to the notes (oh, the notes!) I've written to the music that I actually bought on iTunes. It definitely left me feeling a little empty.

I was not really angry about it being stolen as much as I was disappointed in myself for letting it happen. I should have had the common sense to not leave my belongings around a bunch of fucking kids.

I'm not sure if the lesson I learned here was to be more careful with my possessions or that kids are the fucking worst.

It didn't help that the little brat who stole my phone updated my Facebook status with "I got robbed I'm tight."

If the kid dies an early death the world would be better off for it.

Leaving my bitterness aside, there's the whole issue of reporting my iPhone stolen. I wanted to report it stolen because my friend told me his coworker was able to replace her iPhone for only $200 by providing a police report.

So I set out on Friday to the 62nd precinct to file a report. When I arrived, one lady told me that I needed an IMEI number to file a report. Another told me that I could file a report and just call back in later with the IMEI. Ultimately the two of them decided that I would need that number to file a report.

On Sunday afternoon, I went there with IMEI in hand to file my report. It was a different lady this time. She gave me some forms to fill out and made sure I had the IMEI number. After filling out the papers, she told me to wait. It did not look like anything was going on at the precinct. I was the only civilian in the whole place. There were officers in the back watching the game and random officers coming in and out of the precinct, but it was an otherwise slow day. Still, I had to wait 30 minutes until she would finally help me.

When she finally took a look at my forms, she said she couldn't do anything for me because I was missing the address of the location where the incident took place. I had wrote down "Joseph B. Cavallaro IS 281" and figured that would be enough. After all, the school was about a 5 minute drive from the precinct.

I asked her if she could just look it up on the computer and she said she couldn't. I would have to come back with the address. I was fucking pissed at this point. This was the second time I was back here and they couldn't help me with a simple thing like the address of a school that was located 5 minutes away from the precinct? She told me to call somebody to ask for the address and I had to tell her uh . . . my phone was STOLEN.

As luck would have it I did have 2 quarters on me and was able to find a payphone in the precinct. After getting the address of the school, I came back and this time she told me to wait. I waited and waited.

I saw her get dressed to go leave somewhere, so I thought her shift must have been over and that someone else would help me. Whenever I would stand up, she would just ask me to sit down and that someone would help me. After she left, I waited some more. I stood up again and another officer told me to please sit down and that somebody would help me.

After 40 more minutes of waiting, I finally asked another police officer who I could get help from. I had no idea what I was actually waiting for, and it seemed neither did he. It appeared that nobody had planned to help me and that I was waiting for no good reason.

The officer looked through my paperwork and then asked me if I had my cell phone bill.

My cell phone bill?

I told him no, the people who I spoke with earlier never told me I needed that.

Well that's what I need to bring in, and he can't help me if I don't have it.

Well fuckity fuck fuck, thanks for letting me know I just wasted an hour and a half of my day. That officer was a fucking prick, and so were all the folks behind the reception area that "helped" me. Trying to file a goddamn police report for a stolen phone is a worse experience than getting the phone stolen. I know a stolen phone is very insignificant in the grand scheme of things but it would have been nice if the people who are supposed to protect this city acted like they gave a shit.

Everyone at the 62nd precinct can just go to hell.