[emmpeethree]

so last friday there was a huge concert up at the university since its the end of the school year.

i had school earlier in the day, but decided not to bring any books because this concert is always a drunken gongshow. my college happens to be just over an hour bus from home and an hour from the university. i decide not to bring my backpack, but bring my jacket and MP3 player since it was cloudy out and could rain and the bus rides were FAR too long not to have any tunes.

i get to the concert, the cloud cleared and its sunny. about 10 of my friends are sitting on a hill watching the show. i take off the jacket with my mp3 player inside (Zen Xtra 40 GB + Shure E2 headphones) and ask if they can watch it. i put it in the middle of all of them.

i had to get some beer and meet some other friends , so i wandered off after half an hour, came back an hour later, then left again. at the end of the concert, i go back to find them all gone, no jacket to be seen. i call them up and they said they were on the way out.

NO ONE claims to have seen my jacket or know anything about it. now i can understand if they had a few drinks, and some of them were quite drunk, but there were over a dozen people altogether and different levels of sobriety, i would expect atleast one of them to pick up the jacket in the middle of the pile and take it with them.

its been 3 days and no one has seen the jacket, has it, or knows anything about it. i've asked everyone if they can contact their other friends who were there and no one has gotten back to me.

i'll be heading to school tomorow minus my waterproof jacket, MP3 player and headphones. 600 bucks.

i'm not impressed at all.

was i expecting too much of them???

 

[minya]

You left your jacket alone with them throughout the entire concert? If so, then you deserve whatever you get. If you left it for ten minutes, then that's pretty bad. Anything past ten minutes and you need to be more responsible for your own belongings.

 

[terrymx]

jezz thats sucks. i would not leave something that expensive there. atleast put the hd player into my jeans pockets.

and about the friends, well i dont know them. but it depends on what kind of friends and the level of trust.

 

[jjcapurro]

It's not your friends' job to watch your jacket... Especially if they have been drinking! You can't expect people to be reliable when they are inebriated even just a little bit. Next time keep the MP3 player in your pocket and if the jacket gets lost then darn. Chalk it up to experience and move on.

 

[plainsong]

If they were real friends, then yeah I'd trust them with my stuff. But obviously I guess you were mistaken on the friends bit. I'll say feel free to vent at them what you really think about them, and then just never trust anyone with your stuff again and move on.

I'll go as far to as to say one of them probably has your jacket and mp3 player.

 

[greenhorn]

I am sorry about your loss. However, asking "about 10 friends" to keep an eye on your stuff is like not asking anyone, if you see what I mean. No one among the 10 persons would ever feel really responsible. You should have asked one specific person to watch your jacket.

 

[Silfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenhorn I am sorry about your loss. However, asking "about 10 friends" to keep an eye on your stuff is like not asking anyone, if you see what I mean. No one among the 10 persons would ever feel really responsible. You should have asked one specific person to watch your jacket.

Exactly! If you want your stuff to be looked after you have to ask one person and make sure they promise you they'll look after it.
I'm sorry you lost your stuff. That sucks. Next time tie the jacket around your waist or something simular and make sure you keep the mp3player and phones on you. If they're in the jacket pocket, make sure they can't fall out.
The only person you can really trust with your valuables is yourself. Especially at a concert.

 

[jpr703]

Sorry you lost your stuff, but I can see how that would happen in a situation like that. I'm sure you can't help but be disappointed, but I wouldn't hold a grudge.

 

[Shift]

Wait wait, you brought all that stuff to Arts County Fair (I assume that's the event you're talking about)? Most people don't even remember anything the next day. I would not leave any valuables behind, unless someone in the group isn't going to drink.

 

[morphie]

Sucks to lose that much, but its in way your friend's fault if you left it there for a few hours...

 

[viator122]

sorry, mp3, i have to agree with everyone else...you were asking for trouble.

 

[TWIFOSP]

Sucks that you lost your gear, but...

Not only were you expecting too much of your friends, but you were expecting too much of anyone. When the word "hours" entered your post you illustrated that you expected your friends to have ambigious responsibility over your belongings. It'd be different if you singled one person out and asked them: "Hey, I'm going to go enjoy the show and grab a few beers, would be you willing to watch this for <x period of time>" In the event that they accept, then and only then could you be expecting of them to be responsible for your belongings. Would you feel responsible if you were in your friends shoes? Some non discript jacket with an unknown inventory laying around.

It pretty much seems like you learned a 600 dollar lesson on belongings and who they belong to: Those that maintain possession of them. Otherwise ownership is an illusion.

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

It's not your friends' job to watch your jacket... Especially if they have been drinking!

true freinds cover your back no matter what the situation and that is why they are so hard to come by and even after all these years I can count mine on one hand and STILL have fingers left over.

trust is not a thing you toss around or you test by putting folks in a position to screw you but something earned over time through deeds ,by action.

Something given too easily is just as easily disregarded as in this case where your personal belongings seem to have been "disregarded".


Expensive lesson man.But learn from it and it is cheap

 

[viator122]

Rick, what you say makes sense as usual.

However, mp3 brought $600 worth of electronics to an event he describes as Quote:

always a drunken gongshow.

Then he dropped those electronics on the ground in a jacket amidst this drunken party and leaves his friends to babysit it for hours with no one person responsible for the jacket.

I don't see this as a case of friends saying to themselves, "Hey I don't feel like watching this anymore." Seems to me like all his friends got drunk and no one remembered the jacket hours later.

 

[EyeAmEye]

If a friend asked me to watch something, and the item went "missing", I would feel responsible. That's what a friend SHOULD do, but most people mistake drunken idiots and hangout pals with actual friends. A true friend would have made it his/her business to look out for something you entrusted to them. So, no, you weren't expecting too much from a friend. Yes, you did, however, expect too much from a pack of drunken losers.

All in all, I'm sorry you lost your stuff, but don't be surprised if one of your "friends" knows exactly where it is...


Edit: just saw Rick's post after posting mine, seems we're on the same page