Dating : A Cactus Thief

The guy came into the shop, looked around inside and pointed at a two metre tall cactus plant by the window and said, “I want to buy it.”

I asked him, “Do you want us to deliver it to your place?” He said, “No. I want to take it back to my house in my car.” I said, “I don’t think you can because it is way too tall to load in a car and it has lots of thorns.” He said, “Well, O.K. Can I pay by credit card?” “Sure, you can.”

At that time, I was the only one who was working in the flower shop. I took his credit card, inserted it to the machine, asked him for a signature.

Everything went smoothly, but one thing that I felt strange was that he only signed his first name, even though there was a full name signature on his credit card.

I asked him, “Can I have your full name signature, please?” I was afraid that the credit company would have rejected it otherwise. He said, “O.K.” and added his last name on it.

After I gave him his receipt, I asked him to write down the address where he wanted us to deliver the cactus. He took a pen, but soon put it down, saying, “I will come back to pick it up with my pickup truck this evening.” I asked, “Could you tell me about what time you will come back?” He said, “Well, maybe between five to seven. Will you still be open?” “Yes, we will be open till midnight,” I answered.

Five minutes after he left, there was a phone call from the police, saying that the credit card which I had just accepted seemed to be reported stolen. It was an attempt at credit card fraud.

Four police officers came to the small shop, one of whom showed me several photos of suspects. He asked me if I could identify the man among them. He said, “You can take your time.” I stared at the faces on each photo, one by one, but I couldn’t be sure. I managed to narrow down to three photos, one of which might have been him, but then I gave up. I said to the police officer, “Sorry, I can’t remember.” I didn’t want to say anything that might have given somebody trouble when I was not one hundred percent sure.

The police officers stayed in the shop waiting for him to come back. Five o’clock came, but he didn’t come. When it was seven, he still hadn’t appeared. The police officers ate dinner boxes and had coffee in the upstairs of the shop. Finally, it was midnight when we closed the shop, but the guy never came back.

The police said that he may not have meant to come back again from the beginning. He might have just wanted to try and see if the credit card was still working.

In fact, I was rather relieved that he didn’t show up because I didn’t want to see somebody getting arrested in front of me. Plus, we didn’t lose anything. The tall cactus was still there.

But, if he had come back by any chance, I would like to ask him, “why did you choose the cactus?”. We have lots of colourful flowers and most guests prefer to choose roses, tulips or others. “Didn’t you have anybody to give lovely flowers?”

Thinking about him, I looked up at the tall cactus which was luckily not stolen, and I felt something prickle in my stomach.