LOST PURSE
LOST PURSE ….
Daisy and Stan went to the shopping centre on Thursday morning as usual. Stan dropped Daisy as close to the entrance as possible to avoid walking in the heavy rain. Then he parked further away and found another entrance, closer to the hairdresser, for a trim and a chat with his old friend the barber. Although he was careful to look out for Daisy since her fall last year, Stan felt ok leaving her alone at 75 years of age. All her faculties were perfect, unlike Stan himself, who occasionally had occasional memory losses.
Daisy felt with growing unease that her purse had gone missing - been taken actually - with quite a lot of money - about 1000 dollars. She first became alarmed in line at the fast food café in the shopping centre. Suspicious movements from the guy behind her led her to accuse him of pickpocketing the purse. She was making quite a commotion, and soon the shopping centre security guards arrived and they called the local police to come and question the guy and search him. The guards of course had no powers to search anyone. In the police search search through his pockets they found an identity card of an F B I officer which carried an unmistakable photo of him. The local cops were satisfied on seeing the card; but she kept saying he took her purse and wanted him arrested.
He could have passed it to an accomplice, she snorted, carefully articulating her new word ‘accomplice’ learned from the many police shows she watched on tv.
The FBI guy held his arms apart and raised his shoulders in incredulity, rolling his eyes for the cops’ benefit.
If the purse had not been taken, the FBI guy said in his best professional voice, there were three possibilities. First, she related that she had earlier been to a jewellery counter in the mall and there was the possibility she had left it there . Second, it was possible she had left it somewhere in the non-shopping spaces in the mall. perhaps the administration office, or the toilets, or public seating areas, or had, accidentally forgetfully, dropped it in any of the dozens of waste paper bins. Third, she had left it at home before they drove to the shopping centre that morning.
So, in a small cavalcade of paramilitary uniforms, Daisy, the FBI guy, the two security guards, and the two cops all walked, not quite in step, to the jeweller’s store and asked some questions of the shop girl wearing a large nose-ring. It was she who then okayed the search of the premises for the purse. In and out of drawers with half-eaten sandwiches, and cardboard boxes holding crumpled sweaters and shawls for cool afternoons on the mall. But there was no sign of a green purse.
Daisy suggested in an irritated tone. Maybe I left it on your glass-topped counter, and then some other passer-by simply took it and walked calmly away. Plainly she had picked up a few tips from the weekly Friday night tv showing of ‘Police Crime Videos’.
The nose-ring girl raised her eyebrows and threw back her head, shrugging her shoulders, and said in her most condescending tone We can’t watch every passer-by (Daisy slumped with disappointment )…but you can check the security camera tapes if you like? ( Daisy straightened up again) The security guards nodded to each other and started to leave.
Sensing a chance of victory in the lost-purse crusade, daisy asked assertively Can we see the tapes right now? Where are the camera tapes kept?
The cops discussed it and then asked nose-ring to call the security guards back. The guards led the six-strong group of irritated people to a door marked NO ENTRY STAFF ONLY in the side corridor off the main mall. There, after much haggling inside the small overcrowded room, they decided which tape was the most useful to watch.
They sat attentively half-expecting a man with a raccoon makand and a striped bag marked ‘SWAG’ to sneak Into the picture. They watched with serious faces as Daisy was re-run backwards and forwards at high speed and was seen several timeses placing her umbrella and handbag on the glass topped counter. But she placed no purse on the counter. So no one had taken the nonexistent purse and walked away calmly or feverishly. Then they watched in amusement as a rather fat woman tried on some expensive earrings and looked side-to-side to see them in the shop mirrors. At replay high speed it looked ridiculous to see the head spinning so many times . Then she decided not to buy them. The cops sniggered to them selves. But Daisy was not amused. The fat woman only made her more determined to find her purse. She wouldn’t have future cops sniggering at her on video tapes !
Daisy chirped up with I want to see the other cameras’ tapes if possible.
But the FBI guy said I have an urgent appointment in court and can’t hang around watching more tapes.
Daisy yelled at him with a Sherlock Holmes tone of scorn If I don’t get my purse back which you took, you certainly will have an appointment in court.
You have no right to accuse me - no proof !
Lots of circumstantial evidence though !...... as she threw in her latest piece of dialogue from the police shows in triumph.
One of the cops touched the FBI guy on the sleeve and spoke like one professional to another Let me make a note of your FBI card details and we can let you go for the moment. Better get down to the court eh?
As he jotted down the various codes and dates, the cop noticed that the date of validity of the card was about two months out of date…
What’s the reason for this? he aked the FBI guy, who immediately began some long excuse story involving his new girl friend. The cop short circuited the story saying, Well, we can’t actually let you go just yet until we check this card. So you’d better phone the court and explain your absence to them.
Althogh the FBI guy was now available to watch more videos, the security guards explained that they had to change shifts in five minutes and would momentarly be leaving the cavalcade. Downcast at losing important audience members, Daisy mentioned that she had also visited other shops and there would be other tapes to watch. Apart from a visit to the jewellery story, she’d made several stops in the supermarket where she had a credit card. In the toiletrie s department her priorities had been denture fixative and nail polish remover. She pulled out the fixative and remover bottles from her bag as evidence, brandishing them in the faces of the cops, who nodded dutifully. Daisy led the cavalcade and retraced her morning’s travels inside the cavernous mall, as four uniformed security men exchanged places and brought each other up to speed with brief explanations and scribbling of signatures on cards. At last she felt that her stolen purse was receiving appropriate attention. ….
The small group decided to widen their search to include public non-shopping areas. Their first call was the administration offices where they met the mall manager. The shopping centre had only just opened and after seeing the fuss Daisy could make the manager offered her a fistful of his special vouchers for bargains, in the hope that she would accept this reimbursement in kind. The last thing he wanted was bad publicity involving a fragile old lady. Daisy stuffed the vouchers into her handbag but remained unmollified and determined to pursue her lost purse. The manager could hardly ask for his vouchers back.
After the manager’s office they resolved to look in all bins or as many as they could , for the bins were emptied on a regular schedule and their contents tossed in a big plastic container outside the mall. So, helped by security and cleaning staff, they rummaged in the big container trying to dodge the heavy showers. They rationalized that a thief would pocket the cash 1000 dollars and toss the purse into a bin, or that maybe she herself, or someone else, had simply chucked the purse out in a pile of other waste paper.
Finally on this scavenging trip, the group found themelves searching in and out of in the various toilet blocks following a tip that security staff had found an empty purse (green leather with zipfastener) in the women’s toilets near the supermarket. The cavalcade trotted expectantly into the first floor toilet block but when the security girl presented the purse there was disappointment. It was an almost identical purse but was not hers. Instead of ten 100 dollar bills, they found only a used bus ticket and a wrapper from a chocolate bar with a cash-back offer for a genuine quality complaint.
Daisy ruefully half-joked I have a genuine complaint but I won’t get my 1000 dollars cash back !
Stories about s recent thefts in this new shop centre were in the air. The two replacement security guards swapped warning tales about laptops being stolen from shoe shops while the shoe assistant was in the back searching for size nines in blue patent leather. And there was the poor woman who came out of the toilet cubicle to see the wet tracks of her shopping trolley wheels running from a pool of sink overflow water through the toilet block door and to the elevator and disappearing. There had been talk of going down the stairs and following the wet tracks outside, but it was raining and all concerned agreed the outside tracks would be washed away. Daisy said nothing but tightened her grip on her umbrella.
While these unlikely adventures were being related Stan finished his haircut and a great chat about the match last weekend. He then went to meet Daisy at the fast food place where he expected her to be. Of course he didn’t know what had happened to her. The assistant at the fast food told him there was some fuss about her purse. Apparently it had disappeared. Stan started trying to think back clearly. She’d left her purse behind on quite a few occasions in the past year , and if she’d left it today, he wondered where it might be. He ran through their trip in his mind, starting with the leaving of the house. How they had got all their bags ready, etc. Once he felt he had a clear recollection of the morning’s trip he decided to go home and look for the purse because he wouldn’t know where to even begin looking for her in the mall - and his phone battery was dead and he had no charger.
He dashed to the car, and the engine cameto life and the wipers cleared the windshield. Driving home through the rain, Stan repeated again and again to himself We maybe left it at home? As we were packing up the bags and keys and the umbrella for the pouring rain? Was it dropped onto a shelf somewhere at home? And the the confusing journey thru a blocked street - with rain-soaked strikers demonstrating about more pay - all put the dollars and the purse out of his mind.
He turned it over and over in his mind saying …. She always went out today because it was Thursday and she always got the special offer in the café…….he repeated it under his breath like a prayer being memorized to give more certainty. As he turned it over and drove on through the rain he made good time for the strikers had been rained off. He got home and dashed inside out of the wet. Upstairs. Top drawer. Ah - he found the purse in the top drawer, all green and leathery and zipfastened. But there was no money in the purse!
Only then did he remember the phone call from the tenant. While Daisy was in the shower, the tenant rang to say he was short of money because of the strike at the factory and he didn’t get any pay this week. Stan had forgotten to pass the message to Daisy as the rain came on suddenly and they had had to grab two umbrellas for the long walk to their parking space. So, there had never been any dollars in the purse!
The mystery of the disappeared cash solved, Stan made ready to go back to shops and pick up his wife. He charged up his phone in the living room socket, and called her at the shopping centre to say he was home and had found the purse safe in the drawer.
She was so relieved she told him to drive down straight away and get her. He quite forgot to say the dollars were not there and the tenant had called. Stan drove to the shops and brought her home., while she regaled him with details of the cavalcade’s adventures in the mall. When she finally saw that the purse was still at home she smiled thankfully, but then was aghast that there was no money. Stan’s dodgy memory at last kicked in and he explained all to her.
So she had lost neither purse nor money. They drove back to the shops and she lifted her accusation from FBI guy. He had by now finished his long story about his girlfriend playing a joke on him with the old card, while he had a perfectly valid current card in his other jacket. He telephoned her and she brought the jacket to the mall and he got his freedom fom the two cops. The only losers were the rain-soaked strikers, and the mall manager who had given away almost a thousand bucks worth of vouchers to the implacable Daisy.
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