And we worry about facebook stalkers!

Today was a good day at the hospital. I was initially underestimated by one of my teachers, but after swallowing my anger I tried my best to write down a good medical history for today’s patient and I was quite lucky (?) to hear a heart murmur on the physical examination, which earned me a compliment from the same teacher…

Anyways… the morning ended well and Emilse (my hospital and study buddy) and I walked towards uni (exercise!!!). We stopped by Chechu’s house (yet another friend) and we had lunch with her. As usual, our conversations schemed a wide variety of topics, including martial arts (Chech practises ninjutsu) and whether they are useful for self-defense. Somehow, we ended up talking about what we would do if we were being mugged.

I remembered the two instances in which I was held hostage (once with a gun pointing at my head) and I quickly stated that I would just give all my belongings and avoid any kind of physical confrontation… Emilse agreed whilst Chechu said she’d probably run after the muggers or try to defend herself.

But the funny part came later. After lunch I went to lessons for a couple of hours. On my way out I took out my celphone and started writing an SMS while I walked toward the bus stop. As I walked, barely paying attention to what was going on around me, I felt a weird vibration on my shoulder. I stopped, and didn’t see anything strange, apart from the big wave of people that usually walk along that street on a daily basis. I kept walking, and the vibration started again. At that point I realized that I had two girls basically breathing on my shoulder, so I looked back at them trying to hint that I needed a bit more “personal distance” to feel comfrotable. No use, they kept walking right behind me, almost stepping on my heels. So I stopped right after I passed a street flower post (if I stopped there people would have killed me for obstructing the flow). I was right in front of the entrance to the faculty of arts (where Dechi studies) and felt quite safe there. I pretended to have a hard time writing the SMS (I usually do, but this was over-acted) God, fear drives us to do just aaaanything. After what seemed a safe lapse of time, I re-took the way to the bus stop, now relaxed again, and trying to focus again (now for real) on that SMS I had to send.

But when I got to the corner of the street, I realized I should check whether that vibration I had felt was correlated to a pickpocketing event, or just a product of my imagination. So I had a look at my backpack and I found that the outer pocket was wide open. My heart stopped, I quickly checked for the main items (wallet with my IDs and credit card- and my portable HD with all my precious digital stuff). Sigh… everything was there! lucky me!! I closed the backpack quickly and for some weird reason I tried to act cool, as if nothing had happened. I lifted my head and showed a big smile to the world (and yeah, first thing that came to my mind was “what are the odds of this happening to me on the very day that my friends and I talk about being mugged?!?!”)

Unfortunately the smile was quickly replaced by an expression of fear, as I realized that these two girls were still around, and they were looking straight me (hey, one of them was BIG!). And by some weird reason, I was possessed for a damn second by a rush of bravery, in which I looked back at them fiercely, as if saying: “I know what you did and I’m coming after you”. Oh, shoot… Why on Earth did I do that? I turned around quickly and tried to flee the scene/look for a cop (these guys are always standing at that corner, except when you need them!) but they somehow caught up with me and followed me in a very threatening manner (they assured me they could hurt me, so I just played their game). I walked as they walked behind me, opened the bag again and took 20 pesos I had inside my pocket (lucky me, they didn’t see the wallet and the hard drive).

After they left, I went into a McDonald’s, thinking that I wouldn’t see anymore of these two. But I was a bit scared of coming out, and I was trying to come up with a plan to get home safe (and with my wallet!). I phoned Emilse and before I could explain him what was going on, I saw the two girls come in again, now after two old ladies. One of the pickpockets had her hand into the old lady’s purse in such a shameless way that I felt really, really angry. I quietly (heart was pumping like crazy, but I think only I could hear that) approached the security guard and told him about these girls. His reaction was to get close to them and sort of “deter” them from committing a crime… grrr I think that his attitude pissed me off more than their criminal doings! Arrrggg!!! The girl took her hand out and dropped a coin and it was all so obvious that it made me really sad (was I the only one aware that this was happening?!). The girls rushed their hands into their pockets and pretended (in a very non-convincing manner) to be deciding whether to get a “Big Mac” or a “Quarter Pounder” and finally decided not to get anything (yeah, better save my 20 pesos for something else, uh) Oh, coooome on!! their acting was definitely worse than mine! (I wish that was enough of a consolation…)

After they left in freedom… after they walked into the streets again, care-freely enjoying impunity, empty stomached but 20 pesos richer, I approached the security guard. My face was saying “WTF!?!?!”, but somehow my mouth was much more diplomatic and calmly uttered: “what exactly are you allowed to do when you see a crime being committed?”. He replied “I can just try to prevent the crime, but I can’t act as a policeman”… ok, fine. I’ll give you that…

All in all, it was a scary situation, which turned into an unbelievably disappointing situation. I am upset because I felt the impotence of not being able to stop the cuprits. Who knows how many more victims lie on their path, and for how long! Arggg… if only there had been a cop around!

But let’s try and be positive. At least the old lady got to keep her wallet… and I definitely saved her from stressing out as I did…