That’s not a riddle, I am literally asking, who stole my jacket at the park this morning? Almost every morning I walk the dog at the local park. This morning was a bit hotter than I anticipated so I took off my jacket and hung it on the child playground fence (the park has a small play area for children) before proceeding to walk around the park. It’s a decent size park, not Golden Gate Park large but large enough where one end of the park is completely out of sight from the other. I’ve done this before, leaving my jacket on the fencing, returning after our walk to pickup. Surely no one would steal a jacket. It’s not like I’m leaving a backpack or something of value laying around. Just a jacket.

So maybe 45 minutes later I come back and my jacket is missing. I look around, nothing. Mind you, this is around 9am so there’s not that many people around. This wasn’t peak Saturday afternoon with hundreds of people enjoying a sunny day. Just a Thursday morning. WTF. Who steals a random, fairly plain jacket? A men’s jacket that won’t fit 90% of men. It wasn’t even some designer jacket that someone might steal, like those expensive Canada Goose jackets, just a fairly plain black Patagonia fleece jacket.

I’ve been trying to come up with possible explanations. It can’t be traditional theft, as a jacket has no resell value. Unless the thief thought maybe I left my wallet or phone in the jacket? What about a homeless person? The park is not near any encampments but occasionally I will see a homeless looking person wander through. That seems more plausible. Could one of the park maintenance workers have taken it? Why would they take it? They don’t have a “lost & found” at the park. Did someone just assume it was abandoned and throw it away? I probably should have checked the nearby trash can.

Truly bizarre. I guess the bright side is, it wasn’t my favorite jacket. I’ve been thinking about getting another jacket but it felt wasteful to buy another one when I had a perfectly acceptable one already. Now I have a legitimate reason to go jacket shopping.