Ben in Hong Kong: When it seems funny at the time...

With everyone arriving and moving into new flats in Hong Kong, there are many flat parties.

One flat party on the weekend belonged to a friend called Nick. His flat was slightly cramped though so he positioned his new mini sofa thing outside in the public corridor.

What happened next can be best explained in Nicks words online the following morning.

""So its coming to the end of the night, i'm a bit drunk but its been a good flat warming and looks like everyone enjoyed themselves. Pretty much everyone has gone and I decide its time to retrieve my foot stool from the hall way. To my surprise its not there. I look around the corridor and it's nowhere to be seen. I check some of the other floors in case someone had, for a joke, decided to hide it. Again, nowhere to be seen.

At this point I make a few phone calls to some of the people from the party. No one knows where it has gone. I start to realise that it must have been a disgruntled neighbour who had taken or moved the stool. What to do next? I'm slightly baffled and starting to get angry that my property has been stolen.

I reason to myself 'If someone was angry about the noise they should have just asked us to turn the music down, not take my foot stool'. After searching the corridors and stairwells of all 22 floors, a tiring task indeed!, I realise that it must have been removed from the building.I go down stairs, along with a Chinese speaking friend, and ask the security guard if he has seen anything. This particular security guard is a very nice chap but is nearly always asleep when I see him after about midnight. He says that he saw lots of people leave but can't recall seeing anyone with a large piece of furniture. Me and my friend decide to have a quick jog around the block to see if it has been dumped on the street somewhere. We have no luck. I'm getting very frustrated by now.

My nice foot stool has been stolen by someone in the building and I want it back.""

Well....