OCTOBER 2, SATURDAY

BEING ROBBED

I‘ve been robbed a number of times on trips. This is the first time I have been robbed, or robbery attempted, I will find out, while sitting right here in my living room preparing for the trip.

For this trip, to be prepared, I have Travelsmith pants with zippered pockets everywhere that are very hard to unzip, I have a pouch that will rest on my stomach under all of my clothes for my passport, credit cards, and any money I can‘t afford to be stolen. I will have only a carry on bag that I should be able to keep track of.

I was robbed in Sri Lanka when I put that special pouch under my pillow for safe keeping and forgot it. When I remembered it and went back it was gone with my passport and some money, two days before I was supposed to be flying with a group of students to India. I got the passport renewed and a new Indian visa in half a day and flew with them. But what I remember most about the passport renewal experience was entering the American embassy compound in Colombo with it‘s 20 foot high walls and spiked entry way to prevent unwanted cars from entering with a huge iron gate and armed guards in guard houses and then the huge, totally quiet room where Sri Lankans waiting for American visas sat in anxious silence afraid to do anything that might harm their slim chances of being accepted while I walked up to the three paned security window where the officer on duty, recognizing an American by my accent and features cheerfully bantered with me and renewed my passport.

Another time I was robbed in Rishikesh when I sat alone in my room on my bed typing with the door locked and bars on the windows, ten feet away, open to the balcony passageway outside with my wallet beside me. I fell asleep sitting up for twenty minutes and when I woke up the wallet was gone and the people in the room next to me were gone. There was a great hullabaloo but no thieves to be found. The next morning on my way to Rishikesh along the road I found the contents of my wallet, except for the rather large amount of money, and then a little girl came out of a house and smiled and indicated she had something for me and brought me my credit cards and my driver’s license from which she had recognized me.

Another time I and a group of students were getting on the train and had just set our things down when a crowd of twenty or thirty rushed along the train corridor brushing us aside and when we recovered my bag with my laptop was gone.

But on this trip the attempted robbery, or maybe actual, I’ll find out soon what’s up, happened while I was sitting right here at this table where I always sit and type.

The story is too sad to tell fully and I feel like a fool, but on the last business afternoon before leaving on Monday I got an email informing me of a pending charge on my account for $919. I had just a few hours

To deal with this before leaving so followed up quickly to the support number for PayPal on the email and was treated with great courtesy and helpfulness by a man who said that I had been charged $919 for a purchase of cryptocurrency. He was very efficient and led me through the steps to remove the charge. I neglected to notice that the letter had been to Bill Mosher, when I only use impersonal William on the internet so that I will know when someone is scamming me, or that the Paypal page didn’t look quite official, or that the racket behind him sounded like a call center (many people with the same problem he assured me when I asked) or even that I didn’t have a Paypal account. I figured the guy knew what he was doing, and he did. It was only after I had opened my heart and computer to him that I got a little suspicious and when he suggested a cockeyed scheme for covering the money through some kind of interaction at Best Buy, and he would stay on the phone the whole time, not to worry, while I did it, did my stupidity began to dawn on me. I promised that I would do as he said and drove to my Bank of America instead. Inna, the same woman who told me her life story had heard my new story several times before and didn’t need to hear me out. There was no charge on my account, no paypal connection, only a desire to get into my computer. When I tried to show her the original email, it had mysteriously vanished. This left me with an hour to sort things out before walking the plank and I went home dejected.

But another day has dawned, the panic has gone away, I haven’t lost a penny, yet. And what I am doing is what I should have done long ago, changing passwords, figuring out autopay during the trip, and clearing off everything I want to save from my computer, figuring out Apple Photos before my trip to clear it out, all before wiping my computer clean.

So I sit here quite cheerfully doing all three. I am used to getting robbed on trips, just not before I leave. I am no safer in Swannanoa than I will be in Naousa either from being robbed or being infected with Covid. I expected things to go awry at some point on this trip, only not as soon, which means I’ll be calmer the next time things fall apart. So I am going to relax and enjoy the trip.