Thieving Critters

Today is 3/30/2018. On 3/29/2018 I was spending the night at a hotel about 4 hours drive from my home. I'd driven out six hours, replaced 3 motherboards and 2 LCD's and driven back towards home about 2 hours when I found myself fighting the urge to close my eyes - while driving at 80 MPH that is not good. I stopped at my favorite hotel, the one I'd stayed at that Monday. I stayed in room 106 - first floor facing the front, so I could keep an eye on my parts-laden vehicle.

I stay out of town a few times a week, I have my laptop and a go-bag with everything I need. Check in is a routine. I bring in my bag and my laptop, pull out my jammies and put them in the bathroom, then get out the clothes I will wear the next day. I roll my clothes, so I simply unroll them and hang them up in the closet. Then I setup my 'office', order dinner in, and complete my paperwork while I wait for dinner. Something I don't do is watch TV. I don't even touch the remote. It is exactly where it was when I leave as when I arrived.

My laptop is stored in a thick, durable Otterbox for Laptop. Attached to the handle is 2 small nylon bags. One stores my AC Adapter and power essentials and the other my mouse and mouse dongle. In with my AC Adapter is a dark blue lighting cable and a bright pink 10 hour secondary battery for my e-devices.

When setting up my office, I plug in my laptop, open it up, and while it is booting, I plug my secondary battery into the charging port on my laptop (using the pink cord), then plug my phone (using the blue cord) into the charging port on the secondary battery. They are all daisy chained together in a nice pink and blue display across the desk. As much as I'd like to say the colors are because they are pretty, it's not the reason why. The different colors make the cords easy to see from across the room and I can know at a glance if everything is plugged in like it should be - AND because they are pretty.

After a quick trip to the bathroom and making sure my room was dead bolt locked with the bar slide secure, I settled down to get stuff done so I could get some sleep. 14 hour work days are a pain, especially when they start at 5AM.

My routine went like clockwork. I setup my workstation, IPhone charging away, secondary battery maintaining it's charge. My paperwork went well, closed and updated in normal time. Dinner was... Well YUMMY - I had a delicious meal of chicken and pineapple fried rice, sizzling beef, and crab Rangoon - I even got a free order of eggrolls. I was overfed, logy, and not inclined to do more than breathe.

As I was beyond beat I decided to forego the jacuzzi tub that was letting out it's siren's call of hot bubbling nirvana and went with a quick steamy shower. I crawled into bed with my jammies clinging to my still damp skin and with a quick glance at the daisy chain of pink and blue, because y'know, it sucks if your phone dies and you miss your morning appointment because you oversleep because the alarm didn't go off on your dead phone... Fell into a heavy sleep.

Four hours later I woke up with a start, certain I'd heard a couple men talking. Almost immediately I wrote it off as someone in the hall or outside the hotel talking. I was thirsty and had to use the bathroom again so I got up and automatically checked my electronics with a lighting fast, not expecting anything wrong, checking out of habit glance. I was taken aback to see that my blue cable was missing. I don't mean unplugged, fallen or anything like that, I mean GONE.

It made me pause, but I had to pee, so it had to wait. The bathroom gave me serious OMG and WTH?

I try to be a very considerate guest. I use only the towels I need and I put them in a pile in the corner of the bathroom when I'm done. I even throw away the soap so it does not slime the shower/tub enclosure. I am also female and have no need to lift the seat of the commode. I flipped on the light to the bathroom and took a couple steps back. ALL of the towels were strewn around the room. The trash can was knocked over, the soap I'd used earlier was laying in amid the towels instead of in the trash, and the seat to the toilet was up.

My first thought was OMG they gave someone else a key to my room and I slept right through someone coming in and taking a shower. But I mentally rejected the thought even as it bloomed because I remembered using the sliding lock bar and deadbolt. No way someone got in through that without me hearing them. I relieved my urgently shrieking bladder, then just to be doubly sure, checked the door. Still in the locked state I'd left it. That's when I realized that my visitor likely didn't need a key. I got a bit exasperated and snapped to the room at large, "Really? You gotta be a dick? I ain't your Mama." And I set about tidying up.

When I finished in the bathroom I came back out and saw that yes, indeed the cable was gone. I have the distinct memory of it being there, I recall checking how much battery I had left, I recall the chime it gave when I plugged it in, and I remember checking the lightening symbol. When I plugged it in, before dinner arrived, it was at 62%. After dinner it was up to 87%. The battery was drained down to 66% when I checked it again. It had been off the charger a while. "Dayum, I need that cord. Give it back."

Of course no cord appeared and I spent over half an hour searching every inch of that room. No good. So I called down to the desk and asked if they had one I could borrow. They ran a standard white lightening cable right down to me, I plugged it in and was very firm when I addressed the room. "Mess with it this time and I break out the sage and salt." Wasn't kidding either. I carry both in my car. Never know when you are going to run into something that needs it's butt smudged.

My cable never made a reappearance, and I never heard the the men talking again either. Asked the clerk at checkout about the guys in the room next to me. She said the rooms on either side of me were empty. Which is actually one of my stated preferences, so it wasn't really a surprise. On my preference card it reads, First floor, no neighbors if possible. Not because I am unfriendly, but because sometimes I am up as early as 3AM to get on the road, and no matter how quiet I try to be, I know I can disturb people's rest.

The cable did not show up in my car or in my luggage or laptop case. I'm afraid it's crossed the ether. Ah well, I picked up a blue and silver one to replace it. I think I'll request that room on my preferences from now on. I'm going to work on getting my cable back. Bratty thieving critters. Just to be safe, I think I'll be bringing the sage, salt and candles in with me.

Anyone have any other suggestions or theories?