My Wallet's Been Stolen!: A Security Parable

I am, as they say, literally shaking right now. I just got back in my vehicle after working out at my local gym, only to find that my wallet had been stolen! This has never happened to me before, even though I have been going to this gym three days per week for the last three or four years.

I mean, every single time I have gone to this gym…hundreds of times….I have left my wallet on the seat of my truck with the windows down, and it has been just fine! No one ever stole my wallet before, so I assumed that my security measures were perfectly adequate. I know, I know…you’re probably saying that it’s a bad idea to leave my wallet in my truck with the windows down. I used to lock everything up and take my wallet with me, but nothing ever happened! It felt a little paranoid, to be honest, and carrying my wallet into the gym all the time was kind of a pain. Anyway, I’ve done it this way for a long time now and nothing bad ever happened, so….

Now that I think about it, you know what probably happened? It was an inside job! Somebody tipped a professional thief when and where my windows would be down, and put them up to it! Come to think of it, one of my co-workers even questioned why anyone would leave their windows up on a hot day like today…they were probably in on it.

Anyway, I did call the police, and some old street cop showed up to take the report, but he didn’t believe my conspiracy theory at all. While he didn’t really laugh at me, he did sound a little condescending when he suggested that doing a poor job of securing my valuables would eventually lead to someone taking advantage of it. Pfft. Cynical old fart actually believes that there are bad people all over the place, just looking for an opportunity to do bad things. Come on, grandpa! I told you I leave it like this all the time and nothing happens. But then he said that it is not unusual for a thief to just walk around a parking lot looking for unsecured valuables in cars. Give me a break! If that were true, my wallet would have been stolen a long time ago. Bad people everywhere, all the time, just looking to do something bad? Puh-leeze!

“You can’t just leave your wallet unsecured, son.” How cynical.

While we were talking, another cop called him on his radio, and I heard him say that they caught a guy with my wallet a few blocks away. He said it was some weirdo who’s always loitering around the business district, but they’d never caught him stealing before…never even caught him looking in windows or anything. What a joke! He’s never been caught doing anything like this before, and all of a sudden he decides to steal my wallet today? Sure, sure. Even if he did take it out of my truck, he wouldn’t have known it was there unless somebody told him. Want even more evidence? Most days I only have a couple of bucks in my wallet, but today I just happened to have $1000! And today is the day he steals? He had to have known! Wake up, sheeple! Of course, he was the patsy for the people who knew I’d just cashed a big check and my windows would be down and my wallet on the seat. Maybe the bank teller put him up to it…

Anyway, that’s my day. I really need to get going so I can go question some people and try to figure out who set me up to have my wallet stolen. What’s that? Nah, I’m not going to lock up my truck because of this…I told you they caught the guy.