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A Learning Experience

By John Graham

In retrospect it was a well-planned affair.

We had been enjoying the Parisian ambiance at an outside restaurant. The meal had been simple, but excellent, with lots of crusty bread and the right wine. We were savoring coffee with that special flavor that vividly proclaims its French origins. We were relaxed.

Then suddenly adjacent to the restaurant, a couple of buildings away along the wide pavement, a drunk began shouting at no one in particular, and he fell into a doorway. Another passer-by went over to look at him, and left him lying there. He seemed to have subsided into a drunken stupor. The excitement was over.

The bill for our meal came, service compris. I paid and we rose to leave and it was then that my wife discovered that her handbag was missing. So were the two men who had been sitting at the adjacent table - behind us, while we have been watching the drunk do his thing.

One can second-guess any accident. It was foolish to hang a handbag on the back of one's chair; one has to be wary of diversionary activities; one should be aware of those around you. Now we know it all but then we were simply entranced with the friendliness that is Paris.

"That was a dumb thing to do." I wasn't the kind sympathetic husband that swears to assist through circumstances 'richer and poorer'. "You shouldn't have hung the thing where you couldn't see it."

However, these recriminations didn't help and we soon got down to tallying the contents to see what the loss was. "Thank God, I was carrying the airline tickets and the travelers checks. What did you have?" I wanted to know.  "Some cash, of course -- and my personal things -- and my passport," she looked at me in an agonized way. Then she paused and said "-- and my engagement ring." She had taken it off, just a few minutes before, because it was irritating her.

We first found the local precinct office of the Parisian police and reported the theft. That had to be our first action -- however it wasn't easy because it demanded a whole new French vocabulary that we had not expected to use -- ring, emerald set in a circle of diamonds, cash, hanging on the back of the restaurant chair. Now we both felt unreasonably foolish, rather than angry. The hurt came later when the police assured us that there was absolutely no hope of finding either the ring or the passport. If they found anything at all it would be an empty handbag tossed under a parked car.

So, we were a little poorer.

Next stop, the U.S. Embassy.

Without a passport abroad one is virtually naked - especially in France at this period. A passport was needed to stay in hotels, to change money, to hire cars, to pass immigration officers, ad infinitum. However, we had visions of four-week delays before a new one could be issued with the consequent disruption of all our vacation touring plans. The Parisian ambiance had faded fast.

At the Embassy however our eyes were opened. We told the Marine Guard our problem and asked for the proper department, and he said "Stand in that line over there." This was a line of miserable looking tourists stretching clear across the main hall of the building. It appeared that each had lost a passport - that day. In fact, at the height of the summer tourist season, the embassy is geared to replace passports, which are lost, stolen, and mislaid, at a rate of seven hundred per day. It was very quick, especially since my wife had the confirmation of my presence and my passport. The line moved along quickly (although it never got any shorter.) Everyone rapidly went through the routine of filling in a form, answering some basic questions, producing what confirming evidence they had (me, in our case), having their photograph taken, paying a fee -- and Voilá -- a brand new passport just like the old one. The whole process took a brisk 30 minutes, and our vacation was under way once again.

We were a little poorer and a lot wiser.

Back home a few months later I claimed the cost of my wife's engagement ring from my insurance company. However, I knew the original price some 15 years earlier, so I doubled the price for inflation in my estimate of loss. The insurance company wouldn't accept that estimate and instead required that I visit a jeweler and get a written price estimate for a ring that looked as close to the lost one as I could. It was fortunate that they did, for the new estimate of loss was ten times the original purchase price.  I was very glad I wasn't buying my new fiancée a ring then and the check would make a nice addition to our bank account.

It was not to be. For some reason, despite having taken such poor care of the original, my wife, now of 15 years standing, insisted that we buy her a replacement "engagement" ring as close to the original as possible. Arguments regarding other uses for the cash went unheard, and so we did buy another ring -- at something more than our insurance check.

I was a little poorer and a lot wiser.

Excerpt from "Snapshots of the Mind," PublishAmerica, Baltimore, USA, 2005 ISBN 1-4137-5590-9 $19.95 plus S&H available at Amazon.com also from John Graham <jgraham@webetc.info>

Also see books at http://www.webetc.info/etc/books.html

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