Just the other day, a friend of mine told me that she had her purse picked while she was talking to a drugstore clerk. I immediately remembered an incident that happened about four years ago, when my mom almost suffered the same fate. I dug around for the account that I wrote of that incident and thought—it’s not voter education, but it would be still be worth sharing.
I recently went with my mom to a drugstore. There wasn’t anyone else when we arrived, so I fiddled with my phone a bit, while my mother tried to get the clerk’s attention. It couldn’t have been more than a couple minutes when I look up from my phone and see that, all of a sudden, there were two other people at the same counter. A middle-aged man standing by my mother’s right elbow, appearing to be waiting to be attended to, and a younger man, crowding my mother on the left, very loudly monopolizing the attention of the two clerks already on the other side of the counter.
To be honest, this irritated me. I don’t like people muscling in ahead of anyone in queue, and since I knew my mother got to that counter ahead of anyone (there wasn’t anyone else when we got there, remember?) I felt that at least one of the two clerks should have been—by that time—wrapping up whatever transactions they had with my mom. As it was, however, both clerks were focusing entirely on the young man, and my mother herself seemed enthralled by the whole conversation they were having. It seemed that the man had earlier bought something, which he was trying to return. For some reason, however, the clerks weren’t having any of it and their reluctance was clearly upsetting the “customer.” It was all very interesting, I assure you. But then, I noticed that there was a third man, standing behind my mom, not appearing to do anything, but clearly rooted to the spot. Now, understand that this pharmacy was in the middle of a small mall, so seeing someone not doing anything but standing at the same spot for an extended period of time—well, that seemed weird to me. It didn’t help that this third man kept looking around and throwing furtive glances at me and the guy on my mom’s right.
Still unsure of what I was seeing and not wanting to stand at the counter to make a suddenly crowded situation become even more crowded, I stood about a meter and a half behind my mom, and started watching her bag, which was on the counter by her right hand. As they say, with a bit of distance from the situation, you tend to get a better perspective. It was then that I realized, while the guy on the left of her kept on talking up a storm with the clerks, the man on her right was slowly getting uncomfortably close to the bag which, from where I stood, I could see was unzipped. At that, I started to move forward, intending to close up the bag.
I guess the third man noticed my move forward, because I saw him catch the eye of the guy on my mom’s right, sharply jerk his head off to the side, and start walking away. The guy who saw the signal coughed loudly and immediately moved off. Certain now that these people had shady intentions, I briskly walked up to my mom and in a deliberately irritated tone, asked the clerk what was taking so long. The talker on my mom’s left was startled out of his spiel and looked at me with a sort of deer caught in the headlights look. He immediately folded up the paper bag that contained his “purchase,” mumbled something like “di bale na,” and turned his back on the counter and a couple of flustered clerks.
I might have just been paranoid, but the way those three men melted away when they realized my mom wasn’t alone, convinces me that she was in the middle of this three-cornered formation intended to relieve her of purse or, at least her wallet.
We were lucky. Despite how easily recognizable that pattern was, I almost missed it because I was too busy with my phone. Lessons learned, right?
Be aware of your surroundings when in a public place and be wary of anyone getting too close. We Metro Manilans tend to be really cavalier about having people getting all up in our personal space. Maybe we’re used to it, or maybe we just don’t want to make a fuss, but this is a blind spot for most of us. A good rule of thumb is to simply step away when people start getting too close.
Beware of loud talkers and flamboyant people engaging in dramatics. Anything that catches your attention diminishes your awareness of other things happening around you. When people start acting up close to you—engaging clerks or other people in a way that makes you look—look away and look to your things. Most important, be very wary when there’s a sudden increase in people around you. This is especially true when the newcomers are just milling around. The increase might well be coincidental, but it always pays to be more aware that you are essentially being outnumbered.