The case of the missing dining dollars

Dylan Hostetter, Opinions and Humor Editor

After I finally tracked down Rodney the Ram, I was left without a case. A detective without a case is as useless as a doctor without a patient. Granted, it’s not like I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a medical degree — I got my private investigator certificate from night school classes in an abandoned JCPenney. 

I was strolling around one dark, gloomy night with no case in sight when I decided to duck into The Commons for a bite. On any other night I’d stay in and cook — by cook I mean sit on my couch and eat three whole servings of Velveeta Shells & Cheese — but that night I was feeling frisky.

As I was heading to Subway to get a free bag of SunChips — I found the manager’s missing cat once so he owes me — when the most beautiful goth girl I had ever seen approached me. She looked distraught, but I couldn’t tell if she was really sad about something, or if the runny black makeup around her eyes was just part of her look.

“Are you a private investigator?” she asked.

“Yes, how could you tell? Was it my fedora and trench coat?”

“No, it was the sign hanging around your neck that says ‘P.I. for hire. Works cheap.’”

“Oh,” I said. I had already forgotten about the sign — I ripped it from around my neck and tossed it into the garbage, then nervously asked her what she needed help with. 

“Well you see, somebody stole all my dining dollars,” she said. “I purchased enough to hold me over till the spring, but now I have nothing.”

I was in love, but I also couldn’t believe what I was hearing — a case had fallen right into my lap. The last time I was this lucky was when I got a pop-up message that I had won a free cruise — too bad my phone was hacked before I could redeem it. 

I told her I was sorry to hear about the theft, but that she had no need to worry since I was now on the case. Apparently the thief had used her ID to purchase a bulk supply of Chick-fil-A and then disappear into thin air. 

My first thought was to check the security camera footage from the night off the crime. It was easy to find the culprit — the footage was grainy, but it was hard not to recognize the one person walking off with 60 pounds of chicken sandwiches.

The strange thing was the thief was dressed head to toe in Hello Kitty pajamas. You would think such an obvious look would make them easy to track down, but by my count, about one-third of the student body wore pajamas every day of their lives.

Stumped, the next day I returned to the scene of the crime. When I tried to approach the counter and ask to interview someone, I was told I would have to speak to their manager: the GrubHub kiosks.

The kiosks were less than friendly — instead of giving me any information from the night of the theft, they just kept asking me for some kind of order confirmation number. I was wracking up a pretty long line of hangry college students behind me — which is a very dangerous situation to put yourself in — so I left empty-handed.

Defeated, I threw in the towel. The goth girl had given me her address, so I decided I would apologize for my ineffectiveness in person. I grabbed some black roses on the way — I figured she would at least appreciate the gesture. 

When I arrived at her apartment, the door was unlocked. I entered with caution. Inside was what I can only describe as an apartment-sized shrine devoted to Hello Kitty. The walls were lined with posters, stuffed animals and even a Hello Kitty water cooler. Yes, that exists. 

In the kitchen of the apartment, I found a stockpile of uneaten Chick-fil-A sandwiches. I couldn’t believe my eyes — how could this innocent looking goth girl actually be the Hello Kitty pajama-wearing thief?

“Well, you’ve caught me,” she said from behind me. 

I turned to see her holding a Hello Kitty water pistol, aimed right at me. She wiped away the black makeup from her face to reveal pink eyeshadow and a rhinestone Hello Kitty logo on her left cheek. I just thought she had some really weird acne.

“Why did you do this?” I asked.

She revealed to me a complex plan to outwit VCU Dine by pretending to have her dining dollars stolen and reimbursed — that way she could steal months’ worth of food and still have all her money unspent.

“You realize that all this food will rot before you get a chance to eat it. I mean these sandwiches are probably good for, like, three days tops.”

A disappointed look crossed her face. Clearly my superior P.I. brain had thought of something she hadn’t. In the confusion, I managed to seize the water pistol away from her and restrain her with a pair of Hello Kitty handcuffs I found on her nightstand.

“How could you betray me like this? I loved you,” I said.

“Loved me? Dude, I don’t even know you. All that goth stuff was just a disguise to fool the fuzz. You really need to get your act together.”

Editor’s Note: The characters and events depicted in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.