Dirty Rotten Thief

Last night I sang the Bach B Minor Mass in the Washington National Cathedral, and while we were upstairs making glorious music, some nefarious thief was downstairs stealing my purse. In a chapel! Honestly. As Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes once said, "It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning."

Thank goodness I had the sense, at least, to put my credit cards and license in my music folder. Whew! Aside from running all over the Metrorail system on my Smartrip card and renting lots of Blockbuster videos, there's not much the thief can do to me. Unless he or she decides to Google me to find out where I live and work, because my keys were in my purse as well.

Oh well. It's just stuff. Stuff is replaceable. And truth be told, I get the last laugh. Allow me to list for you the contents of my gnarly old purse, in order for you to understand why I find this so funny.

1. Busted umbrella
2. Used up chapstick
3. Crumpled Kleenex
4. Broken glasses case
5. Dirty, falling apart old wallet containing:
a. library cards
b. grocery store cards
c. $1
6. Cell phone about to die
7. Lint
8. Various gum wrappers, faded and ink-smeared grocery store receipts, and a ticket stub

Has this taught me to be more careful? Probably not. I don't have a car to leave my purse in during concerts, so I'll have to risk leaving it again in the future. The only lesson I've come away with is that sometimes, despite my mother's scolding, it's best to carry no money in your wallet and to have a purse full of crap. Because who's going to want to steal that?

It turns out, no one. They found my purse this morning. For all his trouble, the thief got a dollar. I hope he doesn't spend it all in one place.