It’s been a flat-out week – for some reason, the New Year seems to have brought more traffic jams (as if a whole new bunch of people just started work on 2 January) and more work hours. Even though we’ve recently had two new additions to our team, which technically should mean work is being spread out, right?
No matter, at least there’s cable TV in the office, so this happy camper has been getting her fill of the Aussie Open and American Idol. There’s also a lot, and I mean a lot, of junk food, which us girls have been devouring at freaky speed (the guys in the office just don’t seem to eat).
But that’s not what I mean by thievery.
My colleague got her handbag snatched this week. Right in front of the office! It was about 5.20pm and she was opening her car door to get in when a Malay guy who was standing nearby pretending to talk on the phone snatched her bag, ran to an accomplice on a motorbike, and the two sped away.
We were furious.
I actually don’t know who was more angry – my poor colleague who lost everything including her spare car keys which happened to be in her bag; my bosses who, as a result, have had to change all the locks in the office and run around looking for padlocks because my colleague had copies of the office keys in her bag; or the rest of us, angry for our colleague, for the inconvenience, for the atrosity, for the knowledge that we will never feel safe from now on. We wanted to inflict pain. Or at least, I and a couple others did.
While we satisfied ourselves with fuming and imagining scenes where we would all miraculously be able to beat up a couple of snatch thieves, my boss rang the stolen mobile phone, and it turns out the _____ (insert rude name here) had not turned off the phone! They canceled my boss’ call, and he promptly texted them something along the lines of:
If you fucking come back here again, I’m going to fucking kill you.
Can you believe the punks actually replied? And in English too! Something along the lines of:
I can see you, you can’t see me, you can’t catch me, ha ha ha!
?!!!?? And then they came back the next day! They rode past the office, stopped and stared inside for a while and then ran off before we could call the cops. If they show their faces again and for some reason we don’t quite manage to run them down, we’re bringing in the police.
I should also add that this is the second time they’ve snatched a bag in front of our office, so the entire road is Very Very Angry.
Everyone is now on the watch for two Malay ____ (insert rude name again, feel free to be creative) on a motorbike, one of them dark and small and the other taller and with a moustache, loitering around the area. Unfortunately, that description fits a lot of people.
The day after the incident, another colleague called us from her car at about 6pm.
“I’m in the car already, but there’s a Malay guy on a motorbike with a moustache just hanging around outside the office. He’s on his mobile phone but he doesn’t seem to be doing anything, quite suspicious.”
We promptly sent our boss down to investigate, and five minutes later, he came back.
“It’s the architect from the firm next door.”
Oh.
I think I should invest in a baseball bat.
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