My Speaker was Stolen

A wedding gift from a friend, my little speaker that played music on the outdoor tables every day. Today, someone stole it in broad daylight. Just 20 minutes after it went missing, I was already at the police station reporting it.

Chinese version

The Chinese police are really efficient. They found him in just three hours!

The officer told us they had contacted one of his family members. Apparently, he might have been a little mentally confused and hadn’t stolen it intentionally. They said he would bring it back to us shortly.

We waited outside the café for him. He wasn’t quite as tall as he’d appeared in the video, but all his other features matched. I waited for him to return the speaker, but after glancing at me several times, he walked right past the café and kept going.

I caught up with him, and he suddenly seemed to realize what was going on.

“Oh, this is your speaker!”

As he took it out of his bag, he added, “Let me make one thing clear. I don’t steal or rob people. I saw it sitting there with nobody around and thought someone had abandoned it, so I took it.”

I didn’t respond. I took the speaker and walked away.

Later, I learned that the “family member” the police had contacted was actually his ex-wife. When she spoke to us on the phone, she kept apologizing on his behalf and making excuses for him.

“He’s never done anything like this before.”

“He wouldn’t dare steal anything.”

“He might be a little mentally confused…”

More than the theft itself, what I find truly sad is that this man is in his fifties, yet when he does something wrong, he still needs an “outsider” to step in and make excuses for him.