My Wallet

My wallet got stolen yesterday.

Right out of my purse.  At Panera.

What totally and absolute suckage.

And now it's 5am and I've been laying and playing it over and over in my brain for an hour now.  I'm sitting here, in front of the computer, in the hopes that "doing" something will help make the angry and "if I'd only....." feeling go away.  But, that probably won't happen until the kids are up and I have something else to focus on.

Let's lay it out, shall we?

I decided to go with some friends to the Panera at the local mall.  I picked a table with a bench seat against a wall so that the kids could sit on it and be, well, kids.  This way they wouldn't annoy the other patrons.  Us Moms would sit on the outside in individual seats.  I put Mikey's jacket on the back of my chair and then my purse over top of that.

A person (I think it was a man) sat directly behind me at a large table.  He was the only one at the table.  I paid no attention, as the restaurant was super busy due to the lunch rush.

So, at some point that man stuck his hand in my purse and took out my wallet and ran for it.

During lunch, Mikey asked me about his coat.  I said, "Yep.  I got your coat.  It's right here."  My friend sitting next me to heard Mikey also say something about "that guy".  We thought nothing of it.

Well, turns out Mikey saw that guy take my wallet and book it out the store, slipping on the floor as he made his way quickly out the Panera.  Maybe Mikey asked me about his jacket because he thought the guy was gonna take it too?  I don't know.

It was only when I was getting ready to leave that I realized that my hastily-shoved-into-my-purse-wallet was missing.

My friends were awesome.  They went into action as I sat there in a kind of "what do I do NOW?" stupor.  One went to get the manager of the store.  I called Huzbend to get him to start canceling cards right away.  My other friend called 911 for me.

Then the texts from my credit cards started coming...."Did you recently make a charge for $1200 for electronics.  If yes, text 1.  If no, text 2."  The credit card companies were right on it.  Charges at Macy's - right there at the mall.  Charges at Target and Best Buy across the road from the mall.

In the middle of this, I get a call from Katie's school nurse, she's in the office with an upset tummy.  I explained what was going on.  She's the best school nurse, EVER.  She promised to take care of Katie until I could get there.  No worries.

All in all, we spent an extra hour in that Panera.  Taking phone calls from the credit card companies and detailing the incident to the police.  Then we rushed to pick up Katie and came home, where for the rest of the day I dealt with the fall out of having to inform people my wallet was stolen, request new cards, put fraud alerts on my credit reports........

I spent the rest of yesterday in a state of either anger at this unknown fucker or myself for being such an easy target.

Then comes the, "if I'd only...."
.....put my purse under Mikey's jacket
.....actually turned around when Mikey asked about his jacket
.....shoved my wallet down into the bottom of my small purse next to Mikey's epi-pen where it wouldn't have been so easy to pull out
.....actually looked at the person that sat within two feet of my back
.....picked the table that I was originally going to pick (which is the table the perp sat at)
.....stuck with my original plan of going home to do laundry and NOT going to Panera
.....not carried a purse at all!

Sigh.  Yep.  Well, it's hard to let that shit go.

And so, now, here I am obsessing and hand-wringing about another thing I have no control over.  I was actually laying on the couch about a half hour ago trying to think of ways that I could contact someone (the stores, the credit card companies) so that I could know exactly the items that were bought with my cards and at what time.  Then maybe they could pinpoint with a camera the dude (or dudes, I suspect it was two) that did it.  And maybe, JUST MAYBE, they could catch them.

But, no, isn't that the cops job?  I mean, I guess I could call the credit card companies and request this information to pass to the officer that is working the case.....

Like, now I think I'm a crime fighter.

Maybe I should contact our local news channels and ask them to investigate the amount of times this stuff happens at the mall I was at.  Maybe it would give other moms with kids a chance.  The manager at Panera told me that it happens "frequently" to moms with kids.  If the only knew.....

I just feel the need to DO something.  But, there's nothing to do.  Helpless and pissed.  Not a good combination for me.

No.  Today I gotta focus on getting gas in my truck (which is extra complicated because I have no cash or access to cash.....), getting a bank card and getting a new license.

It's sad that we've experienced more crime here than at any other time in our lives.  Our car window being smashed, someone entering our garage and stealing out of our car, and now this.  It kinda puts a little dent in your happy, shiny life for a while.  You begin looking over your shoulder, not trusting in your fellow man, not wanting to go running in the morning, wanting to get a really scary guard dog, wanting to own a gun......

I'm a changed person....again.  I'll forever be extra cautious with my purse in public places.  Never putting it out of my sight.  I'll also be suspicious of every person that's a little too near me - catching their eyes and looking at their faces.  I'm bound to get really weird looks.  But, oh well.

You could say that I should've been that way already.  It reminds me of my Mom making us safety pin money into our bras when we went into New York City......Mom is good at that stuff.

I guess the thing that REALLY REALLY gets me, is that Mikey saw the guy take it and that I was so clueless.  He, and the kids that were with us, now know that there ARE bad guys in the world.  There are robbers that really steal things from people and make them sad.  What a sucky lesson for them to learn at a lunch at Panera.

As we were leaving the Panera yesterday, I was just about on the verge of tears; holding them back valiantly as I carried Mikey back to the truck.  He didn't want to leave his friends, he wanted to play more.  I had to explain to him that I had to go pick up Katie at school and then go home to stop the bad guy from taking any more of our money.  I told him that I was sad that he took my wallet.  That it was not nice.

He said, "If Batman was here.  Batman would catch him and punch him to the ceiling."

That made me smile.

I wish.