I had $10k in cash stolen from my house, because I am an idiot
and I'm still in denial about it
I literally removed my parents from from my email list so I could send this out without them finding out about this travesty. “Caroline I told you you didn’t hide things well enough!?!? You are too trusting!!!! UGH!”
Actually, my mom is a paid subscriber so she can’t be removed easily.
So: yes mom, yes you did. And yes mom, I am.
This entire saga happened back in summer of 2022. But… horrifyingly, I didn’t even realize I’d been stolen from until early February of this year. And when I thought back to when it would have happened, I realized… woa… I would have been stolen from the exact same time that my friend was crypto-scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars...
You can that saga here, if you haven’t: The Catfish of Prosperity. It’s a crazy story. And now even crazier that it lines up with this story…
So—
Why did I have $10K in cash sitting around, you may ask? Great Question. Let’s get into it.
Back in 2022, I was still actively worried about imminent cataclysm and, one thing in specific: the central banking system collapsing. Now, I am only passively worried about it all. But back then, we (conspiracy theorists) were still riding the terror of covid’s unprecedented tyranny. Maybe it really was all falling down, and fast.
So what did I do? I learned from the preppers. What did preppers do? Well they did a lot of things. More things than I could figure out how to do quickly. They grew their own food. They had salt and alcohol for trade. They had a 1-3 month back supply of food. They had military grade water jugs filled with water. They had walkie talkies and ham radios and guns and bug out bags and survival equipment and, most importantly skills. They did a lot and knew a lot. And they also hid cash and gold and silver, in case of complete societal collapse.
— I do have to say though, I’ve always wondered like… if society really fell — like really fell — and there was no infrastructure or running water or electricity, and we had to band together to survive, like… tribally, the way I imagine they had to do in The Walking Dead (I’ve never watched it). Would we see money as valuable when what we really need is water and food? Even original money… would gold REALLY help? Like… who needs gold? What can gold DO? Except weigh you down if you have to run from the tribe you’re at war with? Do you know what I mean???? What inherent value does gold HAVE?!?!?! You can’t eat or drink it! You can’t use it to keep you warm! You can only trade it as this … universally accepted valuable item. It confuses me. People have told me that it’s inherently valuable because it’s a finite resource? And … it doesn’t rust? I don’t know. I still don’t get it.
But …back to the story.
I decided the easiest thing to do, for the time being, was to take out some cash. Cash would depreciate, so you were advised to use it within a few years, before inflation made it significantly less valuable, but apparently, it was still worth having a good amount on hand. Y’know, for the end times/cataclysm.
I was actually involved with a little doomsday prepper group at the time, and someone advised me to have $20K in cash, which is a lot, but also… the world was falling apart? Anddd…. I didn’t have any skills for the apocalypse? And I was starting to finally understand how in an instant, I could be forced into prostitution. Having cash on hand could maybe keep my fate at bay for a bit.
So I went to my credit union, and asked to take out $20K. I’d just sold my house in the city, so I happened to, at that moment, had a good chunk of cash just sitting in my checking account, waiting for something responsible to be done with. And so what responsible thing was I going to do? I was going to withdraw it, hide it (poorly,) and … get it stolen within a few months.
Weeeee!
The bank teller told me that I couldn’t take out $20K. They needed time to get that much cash at the branch. But they could give me $10K. I said… OK.
And I walked out of the branch with a humungous envelope of cash, as thick as a… loaf of bread? As thick as the length of my hand? It was humungous. I ran to my car, terrified I’d get mugged.
And I went home, and thought hmmmmm where should I put this? The safe I had just bought was pointless, because apparently I had to somehow bolt it to the ground… or else you could just steal the safe.
I thought… hmmmmm, where would someone not hide a humungous wad of cash?
And for some reason I thought, oh, my linen closet. Who would hide cash there? It was almost too obvious to be obvious, you know? There is proooobably a better place for it… so, I’ll find a better hiding place for the cash soon. And I’ll break it up into smaller chunks. I’ll brainstorm some good, tricky little places to hide it. But for now, I’m gonna wrap it in this towel, and put it under all of the other towels. And I’ll come back to this cash-hiding project soon.
Just in case you, dear reader, are a scheming thief, and now see me as an excellent target for a break and enter robbery, don’t bother. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m never keeping or hiding anything valuable ever again, at least… not in any way that isn’t truly genius. I still have a safe, and that safe is still empty and not bolted to the ground, sitting there wide open.
And the $10,000 in cash? Someone already took it, and it’s gone forever.