L.A. sucks, but there is a happy ending ...

Sounds to me as if 'Los Angeles' did everything right.

New York?

 

Back of the napkin math - we ate two dinners, two lunches, two breakfasts out, plus all the servers at the Wedding and my favorite luggage thief.

What percentage of our waiters and suitcase stealers were aspiring actors/actresses/writers?

 

For the record: The City of Los Angeles' government did nothing right, until we got the right staffer of the correct Councilman on the phone, who pointed us to the right police sergeant, who was willing to send his guys to get our bag.

I'm glad I'm not homeless in L.A. for many, many reasons, but one of those reasons is, "if you're homeless in L.A. it is literally impossible to get anyone from the Homeless Authority on the phone."

 

I feel like, "Look if you just do enough googling and random phone-calling, the police will help you," should probably not be the policy.

 

I knew this guy in a former life (he has even been in my kitchen!):

 

So when discussing the breakfast choices with your partner, did you actually use the word "sammie"?

 

No, and she is probably as ashamed as ya'll are that I would use such a word.

 

Maybe white top thief is just a poor writer

Hollywood writers go on strike

 

Possibly.

Less talked about in L.A. is the hotel workers strike, and let me tell you: Those people have a plan.

If camping outside hotel rooms beating on drums isn't enough to make management act to resolve the strike ...

 

For unattended luggage stolen from the lobby of a giant hotel - where all the luggage thieves work?

You're lucky anyone even bothered to call you back, much less helped you retrieve the bag. I think LA did much better by you than other cities of comparable size might.

Also, being homeless anywhere sucks, and getting the "homeless authority" on the phone is an astronomical longshot.

 

.... you're not wrong. But then again: We could definitively identify the thief, could pretty precisely target her movements from one semi-controlled area (the lobby) to another very-controlled area (The shelter-hotel), and could specifically locate our suitcase in real time, from across the country.

As proven by the results, we needed about 30 minutes of police work.