If you have been keeping up with this journal, you may have gathered that I haven't had a great deal of luck with trousers since coming to Australia. As I travel with the bare minimum of clothes, it doesn't take much to deplete my trouser stores to a critical level. Imagine how I felt on yesterday morning, therefore, when I woke up to find my trousers were missing.
I'm staying at Jemma's house and, now here housemates are back, I'm sleeping on a mattress in the front room. Before getting into my sleeping bag the previous night, my trousers were carefully placed in a heap beside said mattress but were AWOL when I awoke. Now, my first thought was that someone was playing an amusing joke so I got my spare pair of trousers and started to enquire. Given there was a flat full of people it was also possible that they had been moved for some very good, albeit not immediately obvious, reason. Unfortunately no one had seen them and further investigation showed that a few other small items where missing, including a cooking blow torch. I also realised that my phone, driver's licence and Australian debit card were still in the pockets of my missing trousers. We considered the possibility that someone had broken in, but why would anyone steal trousers and a blow torch? And why would they take those items but leave the X Boxes, computer games and other popular stealables? The Robbery theory was considered slightly less likely than the Kleptomaniac Possums theory.
One of the flat mates is an occasional sleep walker so it was suggested that we search the flat in case they had moved them. This was probably the oddest and most fun part of the morning, where we checked the fridge, the oven, everyone's rooms, and anywhere else we can think of. 'Trousers' is a glorious word that gets funnier the more times you say it. Also, the Australians prefer to use the word 'pants', which is also a glorious word that gets funnier the more times you say it. Sadly, no trousers, phone, blowtorch or cards were found. By this time we were pretty confused and running out of ideas. Then the police called.
The police called Jemma asking if she knew anyone called Jo who had lost their phone and things started falling into place. We went over to the police station and got the rest of the story. Apparently an opportunistic vagrant gentleman had spent the night going into houses in the area and taking small items, until he was spotted by police and stopped by a police dog. The police had been trying to return things to their rightful owners, as you would expect. In the case of my phone, they had looked at the messages and found one from Mum starting "Hi Jo", and so took the reasonable assumption that it was my name. They couldn't make international calls so they couldn't call my parents (perhaps for the best as it would be the middle of the night in the UK and would be pretty worry-inducing), so they went through the Contacts List calling all the random backpackers I've met along the coast with Australian mobiles. As they asked them all if they knew a 'Jo' who'd lost their mobile, they simply confused a good number of people who only know me as 'Jos', as my family are pretty much the only people who call me Jo. Thankfully, they kept going 'til they reached Jemma who could solve the mystery.
I gave my statement to the police about what had happened and retrieved my phone, along with Lauren's blow torch. We also got Jemma's digital camera, which she hadn't even realised she was missing. The police had checked camera and recognised her from some amusing photos of Jemma with a cardboard cut-out guitar. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the trousers or my cards. I went to the bank to cancel the debit card, which took about two minutes and confirmed that no money had been taken. I also went online to request a replacement driver's licence from the DVLA, which was considerably less hassle than I was expecting. Both will take about two weeks to come through but beyond that, I've not really been inconvienced too much. Trousers come and go, and I'm used to that by now.
This morning I awoke and my trousers were just where I'd left them. I also had a message on my phone from the police who had found the stolen trousers and my cards. Obviously the cards are of no use now as they've been cancelled, although at least I know no one can try and misuse them. Still, I take this as the best possible start to 2008.
From the bottom of my heart, I wish you all a happy and trouser-ful new year.
