I apologize in advance - this is gonna be a long one, guys 😪

(Also, bear with me, I tried my best to keep this as grammatically-correct and organized as possible.)

I’m a freshman in college so I had to learn pretty quick the reality of how tight money becomes. I was never one to splurge money on clothes/jewelry/etc. as that’s never been something I felt was worth investing in during high school. So it wasn’t hard to cope with a budget. However, when Christmas rolled around, I was at my local mall a lot - I spent maybe $200 of my savings on Christmas presents for my parents/brother. Worth it. Anyways, while I was shopping around, I wandered into this store and fell IN LOVE with this ring. Made me stop in my tracks, it fit perfectly on my finger and just screamed my style. It was this really cute mood-ring handcrafted by an artist in our area. Each one on display was different from the other, made out of real copper and some other metals. I bought it around $20. The only purchase I’ve made for myself in forever with classes coming up in spring.

To keep a long story short, my ring was stolen in an Olive Garden bathroom and I was upset (probably more than necessary, I don’t like to consider myself a materialistic girl even though that song still bops). I told my best friend about it, and they went out of their way to go to the same store and buy me a new one, it was different from the original but special nonetheless. I loved it! I only have a few jewelry items I like as they all have a story behind them. My aunt worked for a small indie company that traveled to third-world countries and inspired their jewelry off the experience. So I have two real-pearl leather-band rings that she gifted to me over the summer and I adored those too.

Now back to our current-setting, I love my job. My co-workers are my closest friends and management is amazing. There’s drama here and there, but nothing toxic.

I was showing the cashiers (my friends) the mood ring and sooner or later they try it on and play with it. Totally fine, as it’s a really pretty ring. There was one time I accidentally left it at work (I took it off as cashiering can risk scratching the head of the ring), and while I was gone they played with it some more before putting it safe in one of the register drawers.

I got them back after a day or so and everything was fine, I wasn’t worried because I trusted them and we were in a tight-environment (cameras everywhere and overall I thought it was a trustworthy place to work).

A few days later, I pull about $30 of change from my piggy-bank to cash at work for gas money (like I said, money’s tight nowadays).

The process behind getting any cash back without buying groceries will almost always require a manager, so one of my managers (let’s call them K) helped give me my cash (along with a manager in training, but that’s not too important ig).

So keep all of this in mind, the cashiers saw me get cash back - we joked about me being broke and whatnot - and the cashiers all knew I wore my rings everyday. Within a few days, I noticed the remaining $10 of my $30 is missing. Didn’t think about the rings, I figured maybe I’d spent the rest of the money on lunch. About three days later, I’m looking for my rings and they’re also missing. I remember - I didn’t see them with the cash. I kept the rings and cash together deep in my purse in a zipped pocket.

There’s no way they fell out. And I feel it’s WAY too much of a coincidence that only my rings and cash were taken from my purse whereas my wallet was left untouched. There’s was also leftover change in the pocket with the cash, left untouched as well. So if there was any chance to something slipping out, despite how unlikely, the coins would’ve fallen out as well.

I was devastated after putting all the pieces together. Someone stole my rings. I didn’t care about the cash at that point, those rings are important to me and I just wanted them back. I can’t replace the significance of those items, and even if the culprit didn’t know how special they were, it’s cruel to take something like $10 and jewelry. I understand stealing can be justifiable at times. Say you need to steal meat to feed your family (we’ve had customers do this before), but $10 and some rings? Pathetic. Especially from my team, my friends, who I trusted so much.

Here was my evidence thus far: if someone were to steal these specific items, they’d have to know where and if I had them. The cashiers knew I had pretty rings in my purse, probably even saw me put them in there. A selected few also knew I had some loose cash on me. From the witnesses of these separate variables, I was able to narrow down my suspects (I feel like a detective, as ridiculous as this all may sound). The thief had to be someone who not only liked my rings, but also saw me get cash back. I told my manager, and together, we were able to make a list of the people working similar shifts as me on the day I got the cash. This left us with the cashier (my friend, let’s call her A) who complimented my mood-ring plenty of times, another cashier who’s been notorious for stealing (they’ve been fired since, so adding her to our list wasn’t too helpful), some other cashiers who I least suspected, and K.

All the while, I’m most suspicious of A, as she’s stolen plenty of small things like candy bars and drinks before, something like rings and $10 wouldn’t be too out-of-reach for her. So when my manager went to watch the cameras over the 3-day timeframe (this was from the exact moment I’d gotten the cash to the day I noticed it was missing), I told them to keep a special eye on A. This was yesterday.

My manager went to work and told K he was going to check the cameras, even going so far as to explain to K the situation (as a co-worker stealing from another co-worker is worth mentioning to the superiors). He updated me last night saying he didn’t find anything yet and only had another shift to watch on the surveillance before concluding the 3-day’s camera footage.

Here’s the kicker. My manager only told K the situation, that my rings were missing and possibly stolen. My manager told K the plan to watch all the footage and find the thief, which was inevitable if my evidence is correct.

The next day, this morning, my rings were returned to my bag. Zipped in the same pocket deep in my purse.

Before this, I was able to show my manager (the one who had planned to check the cameras) exactly which pocket they were in (it was, in fact, empty at the time - no rings, no money but loose change).

The rings were returned, but the money wasn’t. So at this point, I feel batter having the rings back. However, to come to a conclusion, my money was still stolen. Someone went through my purse, messed with my things, and could do it again (to me or someone else!). My manager is still going to check the footage, especially to keep an eye on someone returning my items.

Only, I’m confused. K isn’t the type of person to go to such an extent. K is friends with everyone in the store, so maybe K heard the plan and informed the real thief so they could return the rings before consequences came into play? I don’t know if I should still be mad, am I thinking too much into this? Should I get more people involved? Should I let it go and move on? It was only $10, but I trusted my co-workers and superiors. I never expected to be so disrespected.

I want to know who did it, and I want to make sure I can safely bring my purse into work. I’ll add a picture of the rings below and keep you guys updated because we’ve still got a thief to catch!

(Thank you for reading this far! 🤗)