Amnesty

The laptop came back on the Tuesday after I'd brought it up with Sam. He came into my room holding it and said "don't ask who it was - it was a friend of a friend who I didn't know was here that day".

So anyway, I said thank you for following up and then went to wipe the hard drive because I intended to eBay it. When I opened it, it hadn't shut down properly and was still logged in as 'samuel akhurst'. The idiot!

He also obviously didn't know how to use a Mac because all his files were in the Trash folder, unemptied. I took screenshots of a bunch of stuff and photos too, just for the record. He probably knows that I know by now but neither of us have acknowledged it.

I lost the installation discs with the laptop but they didn't come back so when I went to work I asked Jules if I could borrow work's copy and she said the OS discs were so old (version before the current one) I could keep them. Which was cool.

I have since tried to do an inventory of my stuff. So far the things that are missing include a couple of CDs and my coffee coloured bedsheets (I mean really, is nothing sacred?). The worst thing about the bedsheets is he either stole them off the line, or he's been up to my loft and took them from my linen box. *shudder* Talk about a TOTAL violation of privacy.

I've put notes everywhere to ward him off and thus far it seems to have worked. He has a habit of stealing my honeycomb from the packet so I taped it up with a message 'Sam, stop stealing my food' that he would only be able to see if he undid the wrapper. Sure enough, I noticed that he'd taken the packet down (he never has learnt to put things back the way he found them) but hadn't taken any of the honeycomb.

Anyway my dad is coming around on Friday to put a lock on my bedroom door. I hate to say it, but my mum told me to put one on when he first came to live here and she was right to suggest it. I always like to think I can trust people and then they betray me. *sigh* My parents have already taken a suitcase-load of CDs and DVDs to their place.

In other news, I told them that Boff is moving in. I don't see this as a particularly serious step in a relationship but apparently everyone else does. My mum, ever practical, said to make sure he signs a tenancy agreement to ensure he doesn't walk away with the house after we become de facto. Boff once laughed when I told him of my mum's anxiety in this realm: "She obviously hasn't seen the size of my share portfolio."

There has been an up side to this laptop-stealing business, however, other than it being returned. One of the guys I follow on Twitter, @greymatter78, reported the death of his laptop and half-jokingly appealed for money to buy a new one. I replied that I had an old Mac I was quite happy to let him borrow for a few weeks (until Sam leaves) so we arranged to meet so I could give it to him.

Now, I've never met this guy. I can't even remember how we came to follow each other and I thought it had something to do with David Olsen, who I used to work with. I asked him - his name is Chris, by the way - but he said he didn't really know David. Boff's friend Ian also follows him on Twitter so I might ask him.

So why did I decide to lend my laptop to a total stranger? Apart from wanting to get it out of Sam's reach should he feel tempted to take it again, I knew he was genuinely in need. And because it was my offer, he wasn't being opportunistic about borrowing it. And I have a good feeling about doing it.

Strangers met. Social media can be a wonderful thing.