JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

My Life in Accessories # 2. My Life in Accessories appears every month in Metro. (Panawagan sa nawawalang web designer: Melo, help! I can’t post pictures!)
I was visiting my friend Stephanie in Barcelona, where she was
studying sculpture and doing the whole struggling artist bit.
Barcelona looks the way I imagine Manila would’ve looked if it hadn’t
been bombed to smithereens during its Liberation in 1945 (a bit of
historical irony there). But unlike in Manila where pedestrians are
just another species of roadkill, pedestrians own the streets of
Barcelona. People walk in the middle of the street, while cars jostle
for space on the sides. The Ramblas, the city’s famous bazaar, covers
several streets with a mind-boggling array of merchandise. I found a
pair of pencil earrings for five euro (Don’t convert to pesos, it’ll
only make you miserable). They really are pencils, very useful for
writing phone numbers on table napkins or on the backs of receipts.

You hear all sorts of warnings about gypsies, possibly the most
maligned people on the planet (Bad enough that they’re in a song by
Cher). “Watch out for gypies,” I was told. “They work in pairs. One
picks your pocket and hands off the goods to a partner, so that even
if you catch the pickpocket your wallet will be gone. Or they’ll
create a distraction and while you’re looking away, one of them will
reach into your bag.” I laughed off their warnings. “Excuse me, I’m
from Manila. You can’t fool me.”

So Steph gives me the tour of Barcelona. We take the subway to Gaudi’s
unfinished cathedral, Sagrada Familia. The train is full and we’re
standing by the doors. The second the woman walks in I know she’s a
thief. You don’t live in Manila your whole life without developing a
kind of Spidey sense. She’s not a gypsy; she looks South American. She
lurches into the train car, swaying like a drunk. I clutch my shoulder
bag, noting smugly that it has an inner zipper and an outer
zipper–unless your hand can pass through solid matter, you’re not
ripping me off.

The thief bumps into various passengers, who brush her away. Then
she’s in my face. She hangs onto my arm as if she’s about to fall
down. I move away and she staggers down the length of the train car.
“Idiot,” I mutter. “Your pathetic little ruse won’t work on me.”

When we get to Sagrada Familia I reach for my wallet to get some change.

The wallet is gone.

That’s not possible, I say, I was watching her the whole time. I look
in my bag again, in case the interdimensional blip that had caused my
wallet to vanish temporarily has been corrected. It still isn’t there.

We sit on a bench and I empty the contents of my bag. It takes a while
for me to accept the fact of my wallet’s disappearance. I mean, a
wallet can be replaced, but what about my confidence in my
Manila-honed street smarts?

Then I reminded myself that the joke was on the thief, because I had a
grand total of twenty euro in my wallet. Still painful, but not
excruciating (as long as I don’t convert to Philippine pesos).

Hey, I’m from Manila. I don’t put all my money in my wallet.