Pickpocket Repellent Ingredient #5 - The Squash

If a group of monkeys are a "troop", and clownfish a "school" … what in the world is a group of pickpockets? There’s no official term, but we need to call them something. We considered an "intrusion" (cockroaches), or a "scourge" (mosquitoes), but we received complaints from the cockroaches and mosquitoes. We therefore propose to use “filch,” as in “a filch of pickpockets.”

Our most recent post describes how a filch of pickpockets managed to filch Dad’s money. This one will explain how this could have been prevented had dad included a little squash in his pickpocket repellent.

Dad was highly alert to pickpockets … but he was standing alone in the train station. This afforded the “filch” an opportunity to approach from the rear, make their withdrawal, and then withdraw to count their loot.

Ingredient #4 suggested continuously shifting positions when you are guarding bags or other belongings. Don't give the filch a predictable angle from which to approach the unwatched side.

Add to this the squash … any guard can virtually eliminate the blind side risk by “squashing” your belongings between the sentry and any impenetrable structure that may be at hand. A wall is nice. A corner is ideal.

This is one case where having your “back against the wall” or being “backed into a corner” is the perfect situation. Had Dad backed himself against a wall, he could have completely eliminated the chance that a filch could approach from his blind side.