Jamie Fehr

In a word, don’t. That is unless you like spending your vacation time hanging out in the police station reporting the theft. What follows is an account of the events that took place on December 18th, 2006.

It was a Monday night, maybe even an especially good Monday night, and I was wearing a bright red santa hat (did the hat play a part in this story? I don’t know). I had just finished doing some taping of the Barcelona Christmas markets, a shoot that I feel went fairly well, and was at the time en-route with my coworker Kirsten and her fiance, Tim to meet up with some other friends. We had just entered the Metro and I got out my newly purchased metro pass, put the pass in the machine to validate it and then put it back in my wallet and my wallet back in my pocket. I don’t remember which pocket but never saw the wallet again.

We got onto a sparsely populated green train and followed that two stops to where we were to connect with the purple line to get to our destination. Arriving on the purple lines platform I noticed it was very empty and then I planted myself on the floor and waited. A short time later a large crowd had formed on the platform and the train had arrived. I got on and before the doors had closed and for some reason I felt the urge to verify that my wallet was on my person. A quick frisking of all eleven of the pockets I was wearing at the time turned up nothing. The doors closed and the train was on it’s way.

At this point the frustrating part begins, we backtracked immediately to the platform where I noticed it missing only to find nothing. Followed by searching out an information worker who could help me, only to be sent to the nearest Police station which closed more or less the moment I arrived followed by trying to cancel the credit card¹ followed by getting to the nearest open police station late on a Monday night and spending 2 hours there waiting to sign a paper that said I’d been robbed, and that they really weren’t going to help me. Followed by trying to enjoy my last day in Barcelona on the €6 I had left in my pocket.

What Was Learned

Only take that which is absolutely necessary with when you go out. If you don’t think you’ll need your credit card don’t bring it with you. You can’t get pick-pocketed of what you don’t have in your pocket. Also, don’t wear clothing that is very loose and light and keep your things in front of you. But even that advice will only carry you so far, the biggest thing you need to do is to be vigilant. Keep your hands on your possessions at all times. You cannot be too careful, especially in public transit and open air markets. I don’t think many pick pockets are able to remove from your person that which you have firmly grasped inside of your pocket. I guess what I am saying is assume that you should assume that someone is going to try to take that which is yours, and go through your day with that mindset, i.e. don’t wave fist-fulls of cash around in the open markets and streets of foreign countries (I’m looking at you Dad and Josh).

Sidestory: Canceling the Credit Card

The front desk person at my hostel told me that if I went down the street to the nearest Locutorio I could use a phone there to cancel the card. I didn’t know what a Locutorio was, and when I asked for a more detailed account of what I was to look for his one word answer was; Locutorio. Great. Well, after a 20 minute scouring of the streets I found the Locutorio, but the proprietor told me that I couldn’t call the number I needed to from his phones. Why? I don’t know, but he wouldn’t even let me try.

So I went back to the hostel where I decided the logical thing to do would be to try to call the number with my cell phone. That didn’t work. I waited in line to get on internet computers in the hostel so I could find out if there was a different number that would work. Nothing.

I went back to the Locutorio to verify that I had indeed heard correctly. I had. I asked him where could I make this call? He said any pay-phone would do. What? Why didn’t someone tell me this sooner? Anyway, I very quickly found a pay-phone and made the call. My card is now canceled.