police and thief

Yesterday, was the day I had another 2 presentations lined up for me. I left home at 9am, hoping to reach school early to prepare for the 10am presentation. It must have been the rain, for buses were much more packed than usual, and I missed 3 buses. I managed to squeeze onto the 4^th 188 that came along at 930am. I was balancing on the steps of the bus, lugging my file and laptop. I took out my wallet to tap my EZlink card. But the wallet just had to slip out of my hand and drop onto the floor. Onto my feet. Because the bus was making a turn, I decided to wait til it stopped at the next busstop before I bent down to collect my wallet. When the bus stopped, an auntie in front of me bent down, shuffled her plastic bag and ran out of the bus. When I looked down, my wallet was gone! Just before the bus driver closed the door, I suddenly stepped out of the bus to chase after the auntie. She had run into an office building, and I followed her in. I found her shuffling around with her handbag and plastic bag. When I asked her for my wallet, she opened up her plastic bag to say that there was nothing. Then she shouted some stuff in hokkien (which I cannot understand) and ran into the lift. Before I could react and ask to check her handbag, the lift door had already closed. I couldn’t see which level she went to, for there were other people in the lift. I walked out of the building feeling all so unlucky. For a moment, I wondered if the wallet could have been still on the bus. Dismissed that thought as I remembered double checking the floor, I went back into the building. The directory of the offices was so long! 8 levels, but multiple companies. I didn’t know where to start from, so I anyhow pressed ‘level 5’ in the lift. There was another guy in the lift, and I asked if he happened to know which level had a auntie working there. When he found out about my incident, he recommended I go to level7 to report to the management there. So there was one main office that manages the building. Holding some hopes, I told the 3 ladies in the office about what happened. After some discussion, they decided that there were too many aunties that fit my description, and they couldn’t do anything about it. So I left my number with them and left. Leaving the building for a second time, I went back to the busstop, and realized I couldn’t go to school. Coz I had no EZlink card. And no money. Lucky I had a phone, and called my mum to come pick me up. While waiting for her, I saw an uncle waiting for the lift at the lobby, and decided to try my luck to see if he knows any auntie of his age. He didn’t, but was helpful in bringing me up a few levels to find some other cleaners that may know the auntie. I talked to so many people, who were all so helpful in helping to narrow down the list of possible candidates. I ended up with 2 malay cleaners who suggested I wait at the entrance of the building, for there is only 1 entrance to that place. By that time, my mum had already arrived. Thanks to bong, I managed to get the numbers of all the banks and stuff to cancel all my cards. And my group mates who took over my place for the presentation. I called the police, and they told me they could check out the CCTV. Then the cleaner had to tell me that the cctv in that building is not working. And the security guard had quit recently. What luck! After a lot of discussion with the police, they decided to come down to search the building. While waiting for the police, suddenly one of the cleaners called me over. She was pushing a cleaning trolley, with buckets and all. “the auntie”, she said, and pointed to the trolley. SO I thought she wanted me to check that trolley to see if the auntie kept my wallet there. Then I realized, she was using the trolley to block the lift door, coz the auntie was standing in the lift! Then suddenly I wasn’t too sure if it was her. Height, hair, dressing seemed similar. But hair color was abit different from what I remembered. So I asked the auntie what bus she took to work this morning. “188”, she replied. Then I asked her if she came to work at about 930, then she started shouting a whole lot of stuff in hokkien. That’s when I recognized her. But I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I wanted to tell her that the police were on their way, but if she returned my wallet, I could drop the matter. But she just kept shouting at me in that foreign language, and the 2 malay cleaners also couldn’t help. Luckily, my mum was around and she came in to talk to the auntie. And they both ended up shouting. Haha. Soon after, the police arrived, but the auntie was gone. I learnt from my mum that the auntie had denied everything, even after she said I’d called the police. It was only after she pointed to the cctv (which is not working, but not known to the auntie), then she said she picked up a brown wallet in the morning and can bring down to see if it’s mine. So I waited. Indeed, it was my BLACK wallet. With everything intact. Handing over the wallet, she shouting a whole lot of stuff again, but I didn’t know what she was saying. Unfortunately, the 2 policemen were malay too. Haha. So we had to get my mum to translate again. According to my mum, the auntie claimed she ran off the bus all the way into this building only because she works here. And she picked up the wallet because she doesn’t know who’s it was. But excuse me, if you see a wallet lying amongst a whole pool of people, why don’t you ask the people around to see who dropped it? And if it’s in a bus, why not hand it over to the bus driver? Even if you wanted to hand it over to your office people (which she claimed to want to do) why is it that when I approached you, you denied everything? The intention was obvious, and I could have pressed charges against her. But when the police asked me if I wanted to pursue the matter, I just said nevermind lah. Just keep her records. I just wanted my wallet back. And that auntie, will probably not get employed. (she was still on trial working there lah! And she’s been complained against multiple times ler) Just so glad that there were so many people who were so helpful that morning. All the people working in ODC building. the police. And for my mum for speaking hokkien. It’d have been useless if I had found the person but cannot communicate at all!

Rushed to school right after, ironically in the same 188 bus. 2 hours late, but was in time for the closing. Abit sad that I missed the “most intense debate of the century”, given by my group, but at least everything’s over and fine. Right after lesson, I rushed back to the office, entertained the concerns of my fellow labmates for some time, then had to prepare my next presentation. Had barely finished the slides before it was time to give the presentation to my boss. And obviously he was totally not pleased with my presentation. I think there were less than 20 slides, and I could have finished speaking in less than 15 minutes. But he dwelled into each slide for so long, telling me every single thing that I did wrong (which was everything, by the way), that the whole presentation rehearsal took 2 whole hours. Oh man, so tiring. But I am really glad he pointed out all those stuff. 1 week to improve on it, and I have 1 more rehearsal before the actual presentation to my examiners that same day. Bleah. So stressed with the presentation that I kept rehearsing my lines, leading to me lying on my bed fully awake (rehearsing) til 3+am.