To the person who stole my iPhone 7...
Dear Person at 3rd Floor on Saturday night who walked away with that black iPhone 7 with the cracked face and camera and smiling dog on the lock screen instead of just handing it in to someone behind the bar:
During the days of the wild west, it used to be that men were justified in shooting a horse thief because the horse was that man’s livelihood. The horse was the way he got around from place to place and the way that he made his money. Even in 2013, in Texas, if I would have seen you taking my property and been armed, I would have been justified in using deadly force. Fast forward to 2017, and not that I’m advocating for shooting anyone, because I’m not, but my life was on my phone both personally and professionally. I took an Uber out that night, thankfully there are still good people in this world, as I had to rely on the generosity of strangers to get back home. Also, my work is very much on my iPhone, aside from access to my app from my day job, I’m a writer and I put a lot of notes into my phone to capture thoughts and ideas. Clearly, you’ve caused a lot of unnecessary inconvenience and brain trauma to someone who probably didn’t need it. It feels like a part of myself has been taken from me. I feel violated. Not to mention the phone costs $750, which is a class A misdemeanor, but if you take into account taxes, Apple Care, and the cost to actually operate the phone, you're looking at well over $1500, which is felony territory.
I’ve been praying every day to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost and stolen things. I still have faith that somehow, someway something will come up. Maybe not instantly, but stranger things have happened with items I’ve lost and stolen and asked for his help. He’s definitely had my back before in the case of a lost dog (overnight, I might add), a lost single key, and other numerous small and larger objects. I know you probably thought it was “no big deal,” because people have insurance and backups on the cloud, but I didn’t. I didn’t have insurance to cover a lost or stolen phone. Additionally, the phone never backed up to my computer because apparently there wasn’t enough space, and then when I tried to back it up to the cloud the night before, it failed, unbeknownst to me because and then you took it the next evening. And while the screen was cracked and the camera was cracked, that phone was actually only less than a year old… I’ll still be making payments on it for the next 16 months.
Not that it would have mattered much anyway, because you turned the device off, but “Find My Phone” was also disable because I was literally in the process of getting it replaced to remedy the cracked screen and camera issue.
Stealing an iPhone in 2017 is useless for you. Don’t you have a device of your own? I find it hard to believe that someone who has the means to find him or herself in a bar on a Saturday night in Midtown Houston doesn’t have a smartphone of their own. Also, the phone was passcode protected with 6 digits. The odds of which correctly guessing are literally 1 in 1,000,000. It’s also been reported as stolen to the carrier and local law enforcement, rendering it useless as a phone to anyone who tries to use it, and it will also ping the carrier and Apple if anyone does try to register it. So essentially you have a cracked paperweight that held someone else’s world. I can’t possibly see how there was any value in your actions.
Come to find out I’ve lost almost a year’s worth of pictures, and all of my old texts and voicemails I was saving from loved ones to help brighten some of the dark days. I truly can’t understand your motivations. Money? Is it really worth much with a cracked screen? You can maybe get $200 for it… I would have paid $200 to get it back. Honestly, I would have probably paid more, even though it was mine and I shouldn’t have to pay for things I already own. I ended up paying another $750 to replace it. Was it the thrill of taking something that wasn’t yours? If so, you need help. Whatever your reasons, I hope it was worth it for you, I really do. I hope you know that you may not believe in anything and you may have a misguided moral compass, but I believe in a lot of things. As mentioned I believe in St. Anthony, and another thing I definitely believe in is karma, and I believe you’ve probably got some coming your way.
Regards,
H Town H