Last Saturday, my friend Ginny had her cellular phone stolen, right out from under her nose! Well, not quite, but close–out of her handbag.
She and her husband were shopping and they were in the fruit section of a local supermarket. She noticed that some women were talking loudly, pointing at those little bags of herbs. She thought that they were probably having a heated discussion about what was needed for a certain recipe.
The next thing she knew was that another woman had rammed a trolley into her, pushing her into the veggie rack. She was wedged between the trolley and the rack and her bag was squished behind her shoulder. Ginny stood there, half expecting an apology, but at least expecting the lady to move the trolley off her foot.
But instead, the woman pointed to some bags of onions on the veggie rack and asked if Ginny would pass her some.
She picked up the one bag, but the person shook her head and pointed at another one. So Ginny passed her one of those. She asked for another one too.
Then she barely thanked her and moved off down the aisle.
The whole thing was a little weird and Ginny wandered around for a few minutes, thinking about it and then put it aside.
Later on, she looked down and saw that the side pocket on her bag was open and her cell phone was missing. Of course, she wasn’t too sure if she’d actually picked it up off her desk that morning and put it in her bag in the first place. Her husband called the number and it went immediately to voice mail.
Her stomach sank—she knew it had been stolen. It had a full battery and there was no reason for it not to ring first. But they went home anyway, to check.
On the way she was racking her brains as to who could have had the opportunity to sneak up, unzip the pocket and take her phone out. Then she remembered the crazy incident in the veggie department.
Her phone was not at home. They schlepped back to the supermarket and reported the incident. Turned out, upon viewing the video footage, some women had followed them into the shop; probably others did something to distract the security guard (who was right there). Whilst Ginny was helping the one lady, the other lady helped herself to Ginny’s phone.
It’s a jungle out there folks. Be alert!
Sibo