My gear took a little vacation

[Katman]

Everyone has seen broken glass in a parking lot. It's usually a fragmented beer bottle or something equally boring. I knew right away that the glass littering the pavement next to the rear passenger wheel of my Corolla had come from neither. When my girlfriend and I drew closer, we noticed that my rear passenger window was in pieces and my coffin was missing from my back seat.

Coffin was the nickname for my black hard-shell golf case. I stored all of my fencing equipment it, excluding some old gear and the odd foil I'd left at home. The trunk was difficult to wedge my coffin into, so I had taken to keeping it in the backseat. It contained well over eight or nine hundred dollars worth of gear and it seemed that someone had stolen it thinking it was full of golf clubs.

I reported everything to the police while my girlfriend and I stood among the shards of my car window. The officers shook their heads and told me they were sorry for my loss and that they couldn't get any fingerprints off of the tire iron someone had replaced my coffin with. I filled out the necessary forms and left, the wind fluttering and shuffling the various gag awards from the UH fencing club around my back seat.

Everyone thought it was just awful they were all full of good advice such as "You should have put it in the trunk," or "If it was in the trunk this wouldn't have happened," and even "Did you learn a valuble lesson from this? Put it in the trunk next time." It didn't help matters that my checkbook had been with my gear. I was going to have to close my account before someone started spending my money.

I was thinking about how easily my reduced amount of gear would fit into my trunk when my home phone rang. It was my friendly Houston EZ Pawn.

"Is this Matt Cooper? Yah, some guy brought us a bunch of stuff in a golf case and we found your checkbook inside of it. We think it might have been stolen. He sold us everything including this case for 10 dollars."

During the one-and-a-half hours that my girlfriend and I were in the mall the culprit (his name is Jose something) broke into my car, made off with my coffin, discovered he had not stolen golf clubs, and quickly sold all of my equipment to a nearby pawn shop. He did all of this before I discovered my coffin was missing.

After a quick trip to the pawn shop and a chat with the police, I recovered every single item I'd lost, even the spare change rattling around the base of my coffin. The pawn shop had the culprit's name, address, and driver's license number. Evidently he was a regular customer.

When I drove home, the coffin rode in the trunk.

[Zilverzmurfen]

A sad story with a happy ending!
I'm happy for you that you got your equipment back.

[Pauli]

I can imagine nicer short vacation trips.
Sometimes pawn shops are good for something and glad the guy behind the counter was attentive.
Lucky you!

[lefty_monster]

You got lucky. You should write "The Coffin" in big letters on the bag. Maybe then people will hesitate to steal it

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Justice is the one thing you should always find

[Moonitic]

An amazing story. I'm so happy that this ended happily for you.

[Zelda]

w00t that it came back.....

[Go? Fencing?]

Tee hee. Coffin.

[Mergs]

Glad to hear things worked out Katman!

As for the 'coffin' moniker, the first time my wife and I flew to New Orleans (when we were dating) it was for a tournament. So as we are waiting in the baggage area, down the ramp comes my 'coffin' rattling and banging around. At this point I turn to my wife and say, in a rather loud stage whisper, "If your MOTHER didn't INSIST on coming along, we could have been out of here an hour ago!" The people around us started slowly backing away (which made it oh so much easier to get to the carrosel to retrieve the bag!).

[lefty_monster]

Originally Posted by Mergs

Glad to hear things worked out Katman!

As for the 'coffin' moniker, the first time my wife and I flew to New Orleans (when we were dating) it was for a tournament. So as we are waiting in the baggage area, down the ramp comes my 'coffin' rattling and banging around. At this point I turn to my wife and say, in a rather loud stage whisper, "If your MOTHER didn't INSIST on coming along, we could have been out of here an hour ago!" The people around us started slowly backing away (which made it oh so much easier to get to the carrosel to retrieve the bag!).

That's good. But with heightened security nowadays, you would probably get tackled and dragged away before being able to enjoy the effects of that little joke.

[CheekyCanuck]

It's like a romance story.
I was crying when you and "coffin" were separated and I wept tears of joy when you were re-united.

That's an awesome story!

[angriff]

Try adding a crucifix to the cover, and screw in four small gold handles in its sides so it'd live up to its moniker? That'd make it such a morbid item, it won't whet any would-be thief's appetite

[esskreemr]

Good story. I don't know about your bag, but there are times when it carries more than what a good set of golf clubs would cost. The resale value would still be lower though. There's just something inherently wrong with that.

[Mr Epee]

Well,

I guess pawn brokers are good for something besides hitting with axes to test a young mans theory about life.

You got very lucky!

[fixxmyweapon]

that was a good story
too bad that didn't happen for this girl i know. we were in SC at the epee tourney they have on the beach and someone just up and walked out with her entire rolley bag. never got it back but she did get hella insurance monies.

[counter riposte]

Wow. Great story. Gonna have to put bag in trunk from now on.

[Inquartata]

Or just leave it open, with anything you think might make someone say "Cool!" ( like mask or weapons ) covered by your stained, reeking fencing jacket and knickers, sweaty socks, and so forth. That way at the worst they know there are no golf clubs or anything they'd think of as valuable, and at best they will be actively repulsed...

[armataforte]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Or just leave it open, with anything you think might make someone say "Cool!" ( like mask or weapons ) covered by your stained, reeking fencing jacket and knickers, sweaty socks, and so forth. That way at the worst they know there are no golf clubs or anything they'd think of as valuable, and at best they will be actively repulsed...

LOL!!! I think that just the smell would drive them away I do think though that if they are pirate-crazed individuals, they might think that it'd be a good idea to take the weapons anyway... this story is definitely like a romantic novel/movie/thing...boy gets gear, boy falls in love with gear and spends tons of money on it, boy loses gear, boy becomes miserable, boy reunites with gear in a miracle situation and everybody lives happily ever after aawwww....

[Araznal]

What really makes it sad is that all the gear was sold for ten bucks. For some reason, that part of the story makes me laugh even more than the fact that you named your bag "the coffin". What ever happened to Jose? Obviously arrested, but what after that?

[Katman]

Originally Posted by Araznal

What really makes it sad is that all the gear was sold for ten bucks. For some reason, that part of the story makes me laugh even more than the fact that you named your bag "the coffin". What ever happened to Jose? Obviously arrested, but what after that?

I don't know if he's been arrested or not. I only know those details because I was standing next to the officer when the manager at the pawn shop told him.