I was already having a bad week at my job. And then ......this.
The best way to react to someone stealing your purse on the beach is probably not by twirling about in one place like Jennifer Love Hewett in “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” It’s probably also not a good idea to pull hair yelling “my money, my money” in frantic moanful tones. It’s definitley reached a critical mass when you sorta slump into a pile of goo on the sand and wait for the ocean to rinse your cardless, phone-less, key-less, cash-less lump out to sea.
So last Thursday, me, my mom, my aunt, Tiesha and LJ -- headed out to the beach for some walkin, some beach hot dogs (which taste like iguana) and to enjoy my mom’s sweet view from the hotel room 423 at the illustrious HoJo. I had to work the entire day, so I leave directly from my job, pick up friend and son and speed off to the ocean front to meet the fam. Feeling strangely angry from long day of work (and not being able to get off work early) I opt to not change out of work clothes and instead just grab a pair of flip flops and roll with it. We get down to the beach and in the two minutes it took me to change from regular shoes to flops, my purse gets stolen.
This to add to my list of things I wish I had the foresight to have avoided like say: the ride up to Barnes and Nobles last Memorial day where the drunk driver totalled my rental car, the garden hose in Clifton, where right before I went across I decided to run in a full-on race-track sprint, the few moments where I went home and someone stole all my cds, the midnight “frisking” I got when returning from an impromptu Birthday dinner and now I give you ocean-front thievery where I sit down my shoulder bag for two minutes, and look back to find nothing.
I am fortunate though, the VA Beach PD searched every trash can on the beach and sometime around midnight in a port-a-potty off 19th street, they found my bag with cards, keys, and phones included. However, a considerable amount of cash and watch lighter.
I guess what bothers me the most (outside the actual theft) about the whole situation is that your identity depends on 3 things: license, social security card, and birth certificate. If any combination of the triad falls into enemy hands - it can become extremely difficult to prove you are you. So friends, I advise you to have some sorta sheet with all your numbers (and photocopies), saved somewhere safe (preferably/possibly locked).
The VA Beach Police slightly restored my faith in the law enforcement agencies that evening. The police seem to believe that the volume of people calling the cell phones (both mine and T’s) at 8:30 might have scared the thieves into stealing just the cash and tossing the rest. They actually “looked” for my purse and recovered it. Which I damn near thought was gone forever. So special thanks to them. I was really hoping they would CSI my purse and get fingerprints, but unfortunately the cost of the procedure was more than what I lost. I guess there would have had to have been blood or the Hope Diamond in it to merit that kind of attention.
Carry exactly what you need. No more, no less. I’m going back to the beach in a few weeks, with the same bag, to the same spot.. except this time I may load that purse up with a few different things. Any ideas? Wink.
