Late night visitor

It was 2009 and I was living in Punta Cana, working as a Pastry Chef at Club Med.  Since most Americans have no clue what Club Med is and think it’s some kind of health club, let me give you the cliff’s notes. 

Mega Million dollar all inclusive resort chain. French. Veeerry French. Free Booze.  Party. Tons of behind the scenes bullshit. There’s something like 80 different resorts in 30 different countries…

Anyhoo, like I said, at this point I was serving my time in the Dominican Republic, working from 7am till 11pm daily in the bakery. Needless to say, my fellow employees and I liked to throw back a few beers after work and unwind before the next 16 hour day. 

On this particular night I was staying out later than usual, I’d had quite a few drinks and the party was actually pretty fun for once. Around 3 am it started raining and I stumbled back to my room in the employee housing area to pass out.

Allow me to take a moment to describe the fabulous employee housing.

Loft style dormitory, 2 single units each share a bathroom and a shower. So you enter through the front door into a small entry way leading to the toilet and shower area, and then a door leading to each room. Inside each room is a small sink and vanity, a desk, and a cubby shelf along the wall to stuff your clothes in all willy nilly. Along the opposite wall there is a stair case leading up to a small balcony with just enough space for a twin bed. Now I cannot tell you how many times that I accidentally locked myself in that damn hallway after a shower, see the doors locked automatically , and if you didn’t prop it open with something you were left naked in this little hallway with 3 options. Go outside in your altogether and find a housekeeper to let you back in, scream bloody murder till another employee heard you, took pity and got you a key, or kick down the door. I usually opted for the 2^nd option but after a while you just say fuck it….

I digress….

So I stumble home in the rain, toss my makeshift poncho into the trashcan,  take out my contacts, turn out the lights, and climb up and into my bed. Instantly falling asleep.  

I wake up to my lights on…. Odd.  The switch is downstairs and I am upstairs, and while I am still feeling drunk…I am pretty sure I turned them off.  Whatever. 

*Rustle rustle….crinkle crinkle…rustle*

Someone is in my room…..

Now my first thought I have to admit was not intruder. My first guess was that I had overslept and the weekly housekeeper was in my room.  That was until I squinted to see the bedside clock…….. 3:45 AM

WTF!

At this point I have gathered that there is no cleaning lady merely tidying up my space. There is somebody in my room. I lean over the balcony ledge but can’t see anyone, but I can hear them; and whoever it is, is directly below me and screwing around with my safe.  So what do I do? I yell, “HEY!”

LIGHTS OUT

*SLAM* (bedroom door) 

*SLAM* (entryway door)

I fly down the stairs, prop open my door, and rush outside into the pitch darkness only to see NOTHING. Not only am I completely blind without my glasses or contacts, but it’s the middle of the night and dark as hell.  

I return to my room.  My vanity is open, some of my clothes are strewn about, the trashcan had in front of my safe is knocked over and my still wet poncho is on the floor.  Someone was going through my shit. 

I call reception and ask the concierge if he’d given anyone the spare key to my room; he claims he hasn’t and nobody’s been to reception all night. I tell him that someone was just in my room and I’d like him to send security.

That’s when I notice my laptop is gone.

My laptop. My link to the outside world, to civilization. My portfolio, my pictures,  my recipes….GONE. 

I call reception back. 

“MY LAPTOP HAS BEEN STOLEN! SEND ME SECURITY NOW!”

At this point I decide to take inventory; missing from inside my open vanity cabinet: my anti malaria pills that I never remembered to take, some midol, and a cheap water resistant watch from Walmart. My clothes had obviously been rifled through but nothing appeared to be missing and I scooped them up and shoved them back in the cubby. Luckily it appeared as if the safe wasn’t opened because my passport and assorted Dominican Pesos are all still intact. 

Where the hell is security?! 

I call reception and demand to know what’s taking so long, he informs me that security is on their way and to be patient. He actually told me to be patient.

This is when I decide to call my mother at 3 AM her time, in hysterics, telling her I’ve been robbed….not my smartest move, but what can I say, I was upset.  Just as I finish dropping this bomb on her, security rolls up and I tell her I gotta go, that I’ll call her back.

Security consists of 2 bleary eyed Dominicans; who clearly do not have the patience required to deal with a hysterical American white girl. They tell me to write down what was taken, and to go to the chief of security in the morning to file a report.

I am not okay with this option and I let them know this. I am expecting a full scale search and recovery, complete with fingerprint dust and dogs, and tactical units.  They tell me that there is nothing they can do, but will post someone outside my door for the rest of the night.

I am furious.

There is no way I will be sleeping in that room. I’ve just lost the most expensive thing I own, my space has been violated, and they just want me to go back to bed and sleep. Yeah right.

I go for a walk. 

I sit on the beach for a bit, seething.

I watch the sunrise over the ocean, something I’d been meaning to do but could never wake up early enough for.

It is now after 6 and I decide to head back and get ready for work. Instead of taking the long way through the resort I decide to cut between the tennis courts and through the woods that leads to the employee housing. It’s a bit muddy from the rain but for some reason I take this path.

 I’m about halfway there when I notice something on the ground. It’s a tanktop, and it’s bone dry. 

AND IT’S MINE!

I’m instantly alert. I drop into a crouch and I look around me.  Just at the edge of the woods there is a guy, he’s walking along and carrying a small black laptop bag, ducking under branches and heading towards the road.

It is at this point I would like to stop and admit that here is where something in me snapped. That self-preservation thing most people have…well mine is broken.  What I’m about to do, I do not recommend doing. Especially if you are a 19 year old woman.

I grab the biggest rock I can find, I slide it into the tank top I just picked up, twist it into a nice little weapon and I tear off into the woods screaming at the top of my lungs.

Upon seeing this wild eyed, blonde, crazy person  stampeding thorough the bush just after dawn; the guy calmly sets the laptop down behind a tree and walks up to me.

“que pasa chica?”

Now up to this point I’d have to say my grasp of the Spanish language was tenuous at best. Oh sure, I’d taken 4 years of honors Spanish in highschool, but in practical application, I’d struggled.

Not anymore.

Suddenly I’m fluent, I’m screaming at this guy in rapid fire Spanish. Calling him a thief and a sonofabitch and every other dirty word I’d learned in the kitchen from the Dominicans. I grab my laptop from behind the tree and continue to scream at him. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

Here is this crazy white girl, screaming obscenities, wielding a makeshift blackjack, and stealing back his stolen property.

I tell him to wait right here!

I run back to employee housing where there is a security guard sleeping in front of my room.

“I FOUND THE THIEF! HE’S IN THE WOODS AND I GOT MY LAPTOP BACK AND HE’S OVER THERE! YOU HAVE TO GO ARREST HIM HURRY!!!!!”

*blink* blink*

Ah yes…language barrier.

<insert choppier version of previous statement in crappy Spanish>

Finally I give up and grab his hand and run back to where the thief was.

HE’S STILL THERE! Waiting, just like I told him to. 

The guard, now catching on a little, radios to his buddies telling them to come to where we are. They arrive and ask him what’s going on. He claims he found this laptop and was going to return it to reception…

My ass.

For some reason security finds this an acceptable answer and tells me to go back to reception and talk to the hotel manager.

The hotel manager tells me that an investigation has been launched and everything will be figured out, to go back to work and not worry about a thing.

Feeling pretty smug with myself, I call my mother back and tell her my story. She’s floored.  Her 19 year old daughter confronted a burglar in the woods with a rock and got back her stuff…..

My story spread around the resort fairly quickly. Reactions tended to go one of two ways; either I was a badass hero, or I was a liar. Whatever, screw those nonbelievers.

About a week had passed since the incident, and all was back to normal. I was in the bakery and happened to look out the window. There was a guy scaling the side of the building carrying a tool bag. I nearly dropped my muffins. It was the same guy who took my laptop!

So I start freaking out, and the other bakers come over to see what’s going on. Turns out the guy is the maintenance man. Maintenance…who has the master key to every room, and every safe.

Turns out he’s not fired.

Turns out, I’m livid.

I head directly to the hotel manager’s office and demand to know why this guy is still working for the hotel when I caught him red handed with my stolen property.

I’m informed that since I didn’t see the burglar in my room, and only found him with my laptop hours later, they gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Hey guess what, where I come from, if you are found hours after a car is stolen with that car…you stole the damn car. Guilty. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

I was shocked; they seriously let him off scott free.  And here I am still missing random bits of crap from my room. The injustice.

For months I had to see his stupid face. Every time something broke and needed a repair, every night at dinner, all over the resort, there he was. Every time I saw him I gave him the stink eye; and not just my regular stink eye, but my special one…you know the one I reserve for republicans and people who abuse small animals…yeah, that one. Well he got it. Every single day.

The thing was, people began to side with him, they said I was being irrational by holding this grudge against the guy, like he was some poor misunderstood fella. The other pastry chef actually told me that, “He’s a good man, he’s got a family” like nobody with a family had ever stolen anything.  What a load.

In the end I got my comeuppance; a few months after my laptop was stolen this same guy was caught on video stuffing clothes from the boutique down his pants.  Suddenly everyone knew that he was a bad apple and that whole thing with the pastry chef’s laptop…well he should have been fired then, no second chances.

 He was shipped back to Mexico the next day; likely with my 30m water resistant $12 Walmart watch in his bag for his beloved family….but whatever, i'm over it.