lady unplugged my laptop at a café so I reported her charger as lost property

Okay so I was at a café trying to get some coding done and you guys KNOW how brutal it is to find a spot with an outlet. I got lucky and snagged a corner seat, plugged in, and was deep in the zone fixing code.

Then my screen dims. Battery warning pops up.

I'm like... wait. I plugged in. I *definitely* plugged in. So I look down and. My charger is just. On the floor. Rolling around. And in its place? A PINK PHONE CHARGER sitting there all smug in my outlet.

I look over at the next table and there's this auntie who'd been loudly on the phone this whole time, now just casually chatting away while her phone charges. In MY outlet. With MY spot.

I genuinely blanked for a second. Because who DOES that?? You just... unplug someone's laptop and plug your own stuff in??? Without asking???

So I went over and very politely asked her, "excuse me, that's my laptop's charger, why did you unplug it?"

And this woman. This woman did not apologize. She looked me dead in the eye and said:

"Well, you're a student, your laptop has battery right? I have an urgent call coming and mine's dead. Just let me use it for a bit, why are young people so stingy?"

She called ME stingy. After unplugging MY stuff. I could feel my blood actually reversing direction.

I explained, very calmly, that no, my laptop was also low which is WHY it was plugged in, and that I was in the middle of important work and if it died it would be a huge problem. She literally turned her head away mid-sentence. Done with me. Conversation over in her mind.

Okay cool. New plan.

I started quietly "packing up" like I was leaving. And while she was digging around in her bag for something, I pulled that little pink charger right out of the outlet. All of it. Then I walked over to the counter.

Very sweetly told the staff: "Hi, sorry to bother you, I found this charger on the floor by my seat? Looks like someone might've left it behind, could you hold onto it as lost property?"

The staff thanked me and tucked it away on a shelf in the back.

I went back to my seat and just ran my laptop off my power bank like nothing happened.

A few minutes later the auntie checks her phone. No charge. She looks at the outlet. No charger. The color drained from her face and she started frantically searching the floor around her.

Then she looks over at me. "Um... did you happen to see a charger that was here?"

I said, super casually, "Hmm, I was busy plugging my own stuff back in so I didn't notice. Maybe someone thought it was left behind and moved it?"

She got on her hands and knees searching the whole café floor. Eventually gave up and stormed out fuming.

She never went to ask the counter staff.

Probably because she knew she'd touched someone else's stuff first and couldn't exactly play innocent about it.

Anyway. Guard your outlets out there.