Friday, July 18, 2008

The Case of the Missing Video Camera

So, Jeff and I have a video camera. Important little thing when you have a baby, right? Well, we got it out one day back in May and left it on the desk by the phone. By the end of the day it was gone. I asked each kid if he'd seen it, and each kid answered no. I was pretty sure, though, that Jeremy (my six-year old brother) took it and was simply lying to me. He was the only one home when it disappeared, so it made sense. But, I could never get him to tell me anything. Now here we are, in the middle of July, and Jeff decided enough was enough.

He took Jeremy on a walk to try to get him to tell us where it was. At first, he wouldn't because I think he knew he would get in trouble. Then, when Jeff said he just needed the memory inside and that it was ok it if was broken, Jeremy finally said "well, I may have seen a video camera over here." He took Jeff to some bushes by our house and there was the camera--outside. Who knows how long its been there. We brought it inside, and amazingly, it still works! And . . . there were about 40 little videos of Jeremy and his friends. So, the kid stole our camera, used it with his friends, left it outside through many thunderstorms, and then lied to our faces multiple times about it.

A weird thing is that somehow one of the little neighborhood kids, Brandon, had it for a while, and was using it inside his house without Jeremy. And his parents were there too. So, that makes me wonder-- did his parents know he had the camera? Did they wonder where he got it? Did they feel any kind of obligation to find out whose it was? Or did they just say "finders keepers" and not care that their son had suddenly appeared with a random video camera? Disappointing.

At least we have the camera back. And it works. This in itself is a miracle. And none of our videos on there were deleted or damaged. That's a blessing.

But, here's the real question: what do we do about Jeremy? And do we involve Brandon? Jeremy really needs some kind of punishment or something--you don't just lie like that! (and steal, good grief) I don't know. What do you think? I'm asking sincerely. Leave me a comment and give me some much-needed advice!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. Just. Wow.

I would say, talk to your parents and see how they want to handle it. If they want to leave it up to you that's fine, but my parents would KILL me if I tried to take that into my own hands. Of course, my brother and sister are a lot older than yours (16 and 17).

I would definitely involve Brandon though - maybe just go over and ask to talk to his parents, ask if they noticed that he had the camera and explain that you wanted to let them know it had been stolen from you, and if they see him with something like A FREAKING VIDEO CAMERA, to let you know. Dumb people. Gah.

.From Her. said...

HEY! Sorry it took forever to get back to you... This is our new blog address:

SpotTheWonderBlog.blogspot.com

On another note, this situation just stinks. I would for sure hand it over to your parents though, as far as your brother goes. And just make sure they follow through...? As for the neighbor kid, yes, go to his parents, too. Then, I guess all you can do is hope the parents do the right thing, and actually discipline their kids for what they did. Yikes. Not a cool situation. I'm sorry!!