The first thought that went through my head when I heard my cell phone start ringing was “It’s a damn good thing I’m already awake” swiftly followed by a litany of words that really shouldn’t be repeated. I mean seriously, who would be silly enough to call me at 6:15 in the morning? I’m a notorious night-owl, I sleep in late, and even when I have to wake up early I am slow going and grouchy as hell. So who in their right mind who brave calling me this early?

My grandfather would.

Well okay, it must be an emergency right? Um no, apparently there’s some dinner and seminar thing that he RSVP’d for this evening and he wants me to attend as his guest. Said he would more than likely not fully understand everything being said and would like me to go with him. Okay, I dig that. But what is with the last minute notice? Seriously, my internet was dragging last night so I went up to a 24-hr lab in ‘Cruces. I was out and didn’t get back until a little while ago and was fixing to go to bed. Now I have to be sure to wake up early this afternoon to get things done in order to be ready when he drops by to pick me up.

I probably should have said no, but oh well. I just really wanna go to bed now. I’m tired and grumpy because – you’ll think I’m pulling your leg – I had to deal with the stupidest person ever at the lab.

You see, the lab has wi-fi and some poor schmuck brought his laptop, left it there to go do something, and came back to see it gone-gone. Now I got there a little after midnight and there was no laptop there. I did see a bag at one of the tables, but didn’t think much of it. I was there for about five hours and there was no laptop at that table when I got there. I was fixing to leave when the guy came in, and just started cursing. I was shutting down my laptop and glanced up to see some dorky guy standing at the table with a bag cursing up a blue-streak before he whirled around to look at me and started yelling at me to tell him what I did with his laptop.

Somehow I managed not to snap at the moron and simply told him, nice and calm-like, that I didn’t know what he was talking about and that this was my laptop. To which of course the guy replied with “I’m not talking about that piece of shit, I’m talking about my laptop”. My response was not exactly nice at that point and was something along the lines of “I don’t even know you so how would I know what you did with your stuff”. He was not pleased and started yelling about how he left his laptop “right there” while pointing at the table with the bag and claiming he left for just a little bit and how I had to know what happened to it.

I was very tempted to laugh at him then. The place is a24-hr lab that anyone can waltz into why would you go off and leave something valuable for an extended period of time and expect it to still be there? I hate just leaving mine long enough to go the restroom and will often ask someone to watch my stuff for me. Although truthfully, I usually just wait or bundle my stuff up and take it with me. More hassle, sure, but at least my stuff is there.

Anyway, I eventual got through to the guy and explained how long I’d been there and that there was no laptop on that table when I got there. In fact, no one was there pretty much the entire time I was. The guy was distraught over his lost laptop, crying about how he should have lo-jacked his computer or at least gotten laptop insurance, and going on about how all his work was gone. I might have felt sorry for the guy if he’d, I dunno, apologized for yelling at me and accusing me of stealing his laptop. The whole time he never apologized and even after I told him that I hadn’t seen anything, literally since there was no laptop there when I got there, he kept insinuating that I had it in my bag; which was just a purse big enough for my wallet, keys, mouse, and power cord because initially I hadn’t planned on being there that long and was holding my laptop in my arms. Oh yeah, I really had his computer in my purse. Then he kept insisting I knew what happened. I eventually left that idiot ranting and just left. Stopped long enough to find a security guard that walks the perimeter and filled him in on what happened so he could help the moron fill out a lost/stolen report.

The security guard’s response was priceless – he rolled his eyes and mutter “what a fuckin’ moron” under his breath before heading down the hall to the lab.

I couldn’t agree more.