I Miss My Purse

My purse was stolen at a Circle K the week before Memorial Day.  That purse was perfect: a black Liz Claiborne number, with an adjustable cross-body strap and exactly enough room for my Nook.

I do own an actual Nook bag, but look how it clashes with my black Marilyn shirt!

Since you asked (you did, didn't you?) here's how it happened:
I was pumping gas, set my purse down on the trunk lid, and then knelt down to check the air pressure in my tires.  When I stood up, it was gone. People have asked me who was around and could have taken it.  Well, there were people at all the pumps around me and there was an employee emptying the trash can. 

When it happened, I was a wreck.  I absolutely didn't know what to do. I called my phone from the gas station, but it was already turned off.  The manager said that the security cameras weren't operating that day. Since he hadn't actually checked before he said that, it leads me to believe that either they never work or the employees are known to steal things.  I did not call the police.  It's not as if they would have found it, plus, I sort of hate being around cops. Nothing good ever comes of it for me.  I did try and call my husband, but he was at work and didn't answer.  So I did the next logical thing: I drove in a panic to his office and stood in the lobby until his meeting was over.

OK, that wasn't logical, but I did it anyway.

Honestly, there wasn't really anything to be done.  The phone that was in the purse was turned off immediately, so my "Where's my iPhone?" app on my iPad was no use.  I used the info from Dan's credit cards to cancel all of mine (we share everything except for one card I keep just so I'm still a USAA member).  Sprint put a security block on my phone, hopefully making it harder for the thief to resell it. 

One day I'll catch it on Craigslist

There were only a few irreplaceable things in there.

One: The iPhone cover my friend Amber had just given me a few days prior. Nothing fancy, but I wouldn't have had a cover for it all had it not been for her generosity.

She didn't want my phone to end up the Apple version of her boyfriend's

Two:  $60 in cash.  Probably more than many people carry nowadays, but still not very much.

Three:  A purple leather wallet with an elephant painted on it.  The elephant was added on our vacation to Thailand.

Cost me a whole dollar!

Four:  My Abu Dhabi driver's license.  This is the thing that I miss the most and will never ever be getting back.  I cannot foresee a time in my life when I will be living in Abu Dhabi again.  Honestly, it's hard for me to foresee a time when I won't be living in Arizona any more. 

Maybe when we retire to Disney's Celebration Village

So I will never ever ever be getting back together with my overseas driver's license.  Not unless some good Samaritan comes across my wallet in a gutter somewhere and mails it back to me.  This isn't outside the realm of possibility: I left my I.D. at a bar in New Orleans and more than six months later an envelope came from someone working at the bar I left it in. It was actually a surprise to me when it came, not that someone had been kind enough to send it, but because I hadn't even realized it was missing.

Thank you, Random Citizen!

See, here's something you might not know about me: I'm a loser.  Not in the "I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me way," but in that I lose things all the time.  I'm so accustomed to misplacing things that I keep a complete spare set of keys and an extra copy of my driver's license at all times.  My tendency to misplace or forget things is probably why when I do remember something (there's laundry in the dryer or the trash needs to be taken out) I have to take care of it right away or the thought will run around my brain, literally raising my blood pressure and causing me anxiety.

Better quote myself here: They make pills for that.

So, my purse was stolen.  Immediately afterwards I was a wreck and freaked out.  Then I cancelled all my cards, bought a new phone, and felt better.  Now, I feel only a sense of melancholy about it.  I loved that purse that my mother-in-law bought me at JC Penny.  I loved my wallet, and I loved my UAE driver's license.  All things I won't get back. My consolation is that the yellow leather purse my sister gave me gets lots of compliments,

And my iPad fits perfectly!

my passport has a visa sticker in it, similar to my driver's license, and that I hadn't just gone to the bank and had more cash on me.

So farewell Liz Claiborne purse.

We'll always have the Arabian Village.