Pickpocket Repellent Ingredient #2 - More than one basket

Any recipe can fail. In case your pickpocket repellent fails, Ingredient #2 is the silver lining. Never leave your hotel without it!

To have a silver lining, you need a dark cloud. We start with the true story of the dark cloud.

The protagonist: a great guy, wonderful father and husband, tolerant, patience like you wouldn’t believe, loves dogs. We’ll call him “Dad.”

Dad, wife, kids, train station. In a country that isn’t even in the top 50 for pickpocket risk … among the safest and lowest crime rate in the world.  “Hey dad, can we get some ice cream?”

(Dark cloud enters stage right)

Dad takes money from his front pants pocket, gives kids enough for their treat, puts the rest back in the pocket and then carefully zips the front pocket all the way closed.

Dad is well aware that alone, watching the luggage, he’s a prime target. He is very diligently watching in case anyone comes too near their bags. Moments later the family returns, they collect their belongings, and happily head toward the next train.

Pretty soon Dad touches his front pants pocket, which he discovers is unzipped. And empty.

Somebody came up behind him while he was watching the luggage, unzipped his front pants pocket, extracted his money, and departed, without him noticing . Even though he was on high alert.

In the middle of their international vacation. Cash gone!

In future posts we’ll pile on Dad. He failed to apply several key ingredients of our pickpocket repellent, and we’ll ruthlessly point out his failings, explaining how easily he could have avoided this theft. His pain, your gain.

For now though, let’s congratulate him for having divided his cash into four separate locations, two on him and two on his wife. Yes there was lost cash, but they retained the majority, and were able to finish their vacation with only moderate inconvenience.

Good job Dad! The dark cloud isn’t so bad when there’s a silver lining.

Next week, ingredient #3.