29 October 2011A day to remember. They are celebrating the founding of the city with all sorts of stuff going on in front of the hotel. Walking back from getting a haircut I was pushed from the back by what I thought was a drunk. This was about noon. Stopped at a local coffee shop for a coffee and discovered when I went to pay that my wallet was gone. Then it became clear to me what had happened with 'the drunk'. And this was with all kinds of cops working the event.
I lost my credit cards, driver's license and about $200. My passport was in another pocket and my money was stashed in various places so I was OK there. The owner of the coffee shop has lived here twenty years and took me to the police station wheere I filed a report and looked at about fifty mug shots of pickpockets. Give you an idea of the problem here. Spent the next seven hours on the phone with credit card companies and banks etc. None of the cards had been used. I suspect they just wanted the money and ditched the walled and other stuff.
Thank God I have Line2 on my iPhone and can call for 2 cents a minute via Wi-Fi.
The major issue is that I now don't have a drivers license. I've been using an expired license but when we were stopped two days ago for an illegal left turn, which we did, I gave the cop the expired DL and he immediately caught it. I then showed him my retired law enforcement ID and he let us off. At that point I put both licenses in my wallet. Dumb. I also have two really great copies of my Nevada DL. But over time they have delaminated. So I had them in my wallet and was going to get them relaminated today.
Maybe those silly pouches people carry around their necks and inside their shirts aren't so stupid after all.