The Recovered Sofa
Maybe you can assist me with a problem which I’m having with a friend. She owns a used furniture store, and a few weeks ago the store was burglarized. The only thing taken was a big, beautiful, high-back fabric sofa, valued at over $1,000.
My friend was devastated, as it was the finest used item in the entire store. Police speculate that it was the only item stolen, simply because the thieves were not able to carry anything else out the door, in such a short period of time.
Recently, while speaking to me on the telephone, my friend brought up the subject of the sofa and noted that it had been recovered. After I finished my conversation with her, I telephoned the police detective who had been investigating the theft and said, “Did you know that her sofa had been recovered?”
The detective was glad that it had, but angry with my friend for not informing him about that. He thanked me for my call.
A few days later, my friend called me up and started yelling at me and cursing me. I asked what was making her so angry, and she told me that the detective was no longer searching for her sofa. I told her that there was no need to continue to look for it, since she told me that it had been recovered.
She exploded and yelled, “Oh yeah? So a recovered sofa isn’t worth searching for anymore?”
“Well,” I replied, “if it is recovered, why bother?”
“That sofa, I’ll have you know, is worth over $1,000! The fact that it’s recovered, should make no difference!,” she screamed.
“Look, all I did was call the detective and tell him that it was recovered, just like you told me. I think it is perfectly logical to discontinue searching for something, after the owner has informed you that it was recovered.”
At that, she screamed that she never wanted to see me in her used furniture store ever again, then hung up on me. I’m very sad, because I’ve lost a very good friend, and I don’t know why.
Personally, I think it’s pretty stupid of my former friend to expect the police to continue searching for a recovered sofa, don’t you?