My granddaughter might one day read some of my journal entries, but she just turned 9 years old and I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t read my journal at this phase of her life. That is an important bit of information to me as I write today because the story I am telling is her story in a way. I usually am pretty careful about telling others’ stories. I don’t have the write to tell someone else’s story and I try to avoid talking about other people. However, this story is also my story and I’ll tell it from my point of view.

We purchased a lego building set at a local store as a birthday gift for our granddaughter. She turned nine years old this week and she enjoys building lego sets. There are particular sets that she enjoys having and we’ve had plenty of conversations with her about which sets she already has and which sets she would like to have. Her birthday is just a few days after the birthday of her sister and we try to recognize each girl in her own way and celebrate both of them. Although they had a joint birthday party earlier, we had family dinners for each on the actual day of their birthday with gifts from family members.

On the day we bought the lego set, I carried it to the car myself. It had just the right weight and that distinctive rattle sound of lego bricks hitting one another inside of the box. Lego packages bricks in individual bags of sub assemblies in their larger kits. The present was wrapped and our granddaughter gently shook the box for the familiar sound before unwrapping it. After unwrapping her presents, she did not open the box, saving it for a bit later in the evening after eating her cake.

We headed home as the family settled in to their evening routines. It was a school night and the kids needed to be in bed on time. However, we knew that there was a bit of time for her to begin to assemble the set after we left.

Shortly after we got home we received a text message with a picture from our son. When our granddaughter opened her lego set, it didn’t contain the bricks for the set. It didn’t contain the instructions for the set. Instead, there were two shirts, with labels from the local good will store and a small inexpensive lego set to provide the sound of rattling lego bricks.

The disappointment sparked a lot of conversation in the family as her parents helped the 9-year-old deal with her disappointment. Her older brother commented that perhaps being affected by drugs would make a person do something as mean as stealing a lego set.

The next morning we took the set to the store where we purchased it and showed the contents to the clerk at the service desk. We received an immediate apology and a refund for our purchase. Unfortunately that store did not have another set matching our selection, but the clerk helped us find the set in the store’s online market and a replacement set has been ordered and will arrive later this week.

What surprised me was that the clerk at the service desk said that she had experienced similar things in the past. “If you work retail, you see this kind of thing,” she said. From my point of view, and I have never worked as a retail clerk, it was a pretty strange experience. We’ve bought a lot of lego sets as gifts for grandchildren over the years and nothing like that had happened before. I thought about the elaborate effort that was made to steal the contents of the box. The thief had to come up with the idea of replacing the contents of the box with something that had about the right weight that would fit in the box. Something flexible that would conform to the shape of the box would be required. Then that person had to think of the sound of legos shifting inside the box and compensate for that. The shirts had to be bought, or perhaps shoplifted from the Good Will store. Then the Lego set had to be taken to some place where the box could be carefully opened without damage, the contents removed, the shirts and small lego set inserted, and the box glued back shut. Next the box had to be placed back in its place on the shelf and the contents smuggled out of the store. All of this had to be accomplished without being caught by store personnel and security cameras.

The prize? A lego set. It hardly seems like it is worth the effort.

One theory is that the set was stolen from the store, the switch made in another location, and then the box was returned to the store for a refund. The result was cash in hand and the stolen contents was an added bonus. That theory doesn’t quite make sense as the thief would be more interested in cash than in the contents of the box. It seems like the thief was really interested in obtaining the lego bricks and instructions.

Our grandson’s theory that it was someone addicted to drugs who was willing to do something strange to raise cash for the next hit doesn’t quiet hold up because if the primary motivation was cash there would be no need to go through the motion of replacing the contents of the box. Shoplift the item, return it for a refund, and receive the cash.

I wondered if it might be a store employee who figured out how to obtain the lego set without the box, but that doesn’t make much sense with store supervision and security cameras.

I haven’t come up with an explanation. I guess I just don’t think like a thief, which is a good thing.

The best part of the experience so far is that my wife commented to our granddaughter that we were sorry that she had to wait for her gift, but at least she had a story to tell. Our granddaughter said, “Oh! I am so going to write that story!”

I can’t wait to read our granddaughter’s story and I hope she doesn’t read mine in the meantime. The gift of a story to write is a precious one - a gift this grandfather is pleased to give his granddaughter.