The Great Mike Detective

About a week ago, Mike had asked me if I had seen a BevMo gift card he received on his birthday but had since lost.

I hadn't. I didn't even know he received a gift card or I would have told him to put it in his wallet right away. Losing a gift card is particularly frustrating for Mike because back when we bought our condo, the Realtor we used gave us a congratulatory gift basket complete with bathrobes, mugs and a $100 gift card to Zov's in Tustin. Mike misplaced the gift card somewhere and has been kicking himself over it for the last 3 years.

Mike, being a great detective, found the missing BevMo card a few days after asking me about it. Apparently it was sitting peacefully in the bed of our scanner. With the card "safely" in his possession, his mission was now to find the culprit behind the mysterious misplacement. After all, why would a BevMo gift card need to be scanned?

Primary suspect numero uno was me. Of course.

As we lay in bed getting ready for sleep, Mike filled me in on his exciting discovery and followed his story with an open (but obviously accusing) question. "Who would leave the gift card in the scanner?"

I laughed. I told him I definitely didn't do it and reminded him that I had never even seen the card and that I would have no reason to scan it.

He was smiling - but he wasn't laughing. He still suspected me.

He still suspected me!!!

I laughed again, incredulous. "You seriously think I did it!?"

He smiled, "Who else would put it into the scanner? That's too strange."

I laughed as I began my defense...

Mike's got this old scanner that is the most finicky, complicated thing to use. You have to be running some special program and operate everything from the program - it frustrates me to use it so I usually have Mike come and set everything up for me so I can actually scan stuff. I reminded him of this and also of the fact that I would have NO reason to scan his BevMo gift card.

He smiled at me. A smile that was a mix of accusation ("you know you're guilty, right?") and pity ("poor wife, you probably are going senile and forgot you did that! How sad.")

I repeated my arguments. No awareness of gift card + no knowledge of scanner set up + no motive = wife not guilty.

Ok. He sat in silence for a moment as he gave it some thought.

He began to think aloud and told me that I was still suspect number one. He had to figure out another suspect in the lineup. Obviously this would be...

My brother.

My brother?

My brother had come over a couple times in the last few weeks to help me update my computer with new software. He was there for hours at a time installing my new OS and reinstalling my old programs.

Mike had deduced that whoever was scanning probably used the BevMo card to run a test on the scanner.

My brother was working on my computer and the scanner is connected to Mike's computer. Why he would run a color test on the scanner for Mike's computer while working on my computer is unknown - and in the case of the great BevMo Gift Card Heist - is also apparently irrelevant.

As Mike mulls over the two prime suspects, he begins to realize there may be room in his lineup for a third suspect. The least likely candidate of the shady bunch, himself.

Mike has been sitting in silence for a few moments.

Still baffled as to why I have remained suspect number one, I begin to list my alibis over again. I had never seen the card, I can hardly use the scanner, and even if I was using the scanner for some test, I would have probably picked a picture I could use once it was scanned. I then told him he was more likely to be the culprit - thinking that maybe he was making copies of other card-sized documents and absentmindedly threw the BevMo card onto the scanner and forgot it.

The wheels in Mike's head were turning. He spoke as he thought (and I'm paraphrasing here...)

"Ok, you may not be the suspect anymore... you probably would have remembered when I asked you about it last week. So, here's what probably happened. Your brother came over to work on the computers...and we were connecting your computer to our network... and I was trying to link your computer to the printer/scanner so you could print over the network... and..."

...and...

And it turns out Michael had put his own BevMo gift card onto the scanner bed to use as a test for scanning over the network.

Mystery solved!

Mike then proceeded to pat himself on the back for his superior sleuthing skills. He had figured out the great BevMo gift card mystery of 2009. He asked me if I was impressed by his deducing skills.

Seriously, he did.

He cracks me up.