The Thief.

There is a mystery in our house: my mother is missing $$$$, 500$ to be exact; someone's been stealing it and we're not sure who. She always leaves her crap laying all over in envelopes, and has bags and papers and crap all over; she's a pack-rat but somehow she has this system where she still knows where everything is and it's all accounted for and lately she's noticed it's gone missing , first 200$ and then 300$.....at first she thought she was just being forgetful but then she purposely put it in a certain spot and monitored it and sure enough shortly after it was gone so someone's been taking it, but who? Obviously she feels very hurt, wounded, violated,and betrayed, and when I told her I know how she feels; I've been betrayed many, many times, and by the people I thought I could trust the most which made the betrayal even worse she sneered, When has anyone ever stolen 500$ from you? Well, not 500$ but my best friend still did steal from me; money and a video game and the betrayal was still just as real, not to mention all the other betrayals, so yes, I do know what it's like.

My first thought was it's usually the one you least expect, which would be my hubby or the 12 year old. Neither makes sense, and the 12 YR old doesn't really even need $$$ as we provide whatever he needs and the others all have jobs, so no one really needs any $$$$ so it's not about that, so I'm guessing some psychological problem. The 18 YR old does have spending issues and what I think is safe to call a shopping addiction and my hubby did take away her credit card recently, and then the 16 YR old maybe she's struggling again but instead of being self-injurious and an eating disorder this time perhaps it's manifesting itself in a different way? All the kids were interviwed an nothing unusual stood out, and then I also remembered we did have the roofer and the water guy in the house both in the house recently too so it might have even been one of them......who knows? It's a real mystery and for now I told her to lock the $$$$ away and put up a hidden secret survelleince camera embedded into one of the appliances where it can't be seen and we'll find out soon enough who it is, esp. if it is someone in the house and at least she's finally starting to clean all her crap out of the kitchen.....