marshallbrain.blogspot.com
One summer many years ago, when I was traveling with my husband and two small sons through Scandinavia, we overnighted in a campground outside of Stockholm.
Our Volkswagen camper’s top was popped up and my two little boys were still snoring lightly in early-morning sleep. Hubby was already puttering behind the boxy van, and I was outside getting things ready for breakfast. I was literally a happy camper.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a thin man wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap came into my vision. He stood there, and said quietly, "Give me your bread."
At first I thought, “I wonder if he wants white or rye”? We just had bought some hot dog buns. But then I realized, as my stomach dropped to my toes, that the man didn’t mean bread. He meant money.
He was mugging me in friendly, crime-free Stockholm.
It was absurd in a way, like the scene in Woody Allen’s first movie, Take the Money and Run, which had come out a few years before, when Allen handed the bank teller a botched note that read "I have a gub. “ And the tellers couldn’t read the note and got into a heated argument on what "gub" meant, with the robber trying to assure them it was gun, not gum. This man suddenly in front of me didn't have either a gun or a gub. He had a knife.
I was young, knew nothing about handling a situation like this in a place like this, all leafy and supposedly peaceful, and I just stood there, confused.
And again the man said, this time more loudly and with a darker sound, “Give me your bread.”
I figured he must have watched too many American movies., using the slang “bread,” like “dough” in an earlier era. I was still hoping that maybe, just maybe it was a joke.
But the knife in his hands wasn’t.
I stood there hapless, not knowing that my husband would come around in a few seconds, all six feet five of him, and that the guy with the knife would scurry like a rat into the woods, with no "bread" in his hand.
And I certainly had no idea as my husband held my shaking body, that I would 20 years later be mugged in Barcelona and dragged along the street while another man, the man I was living with, wrestled the mugger to the ground, and then held my shaking body.
Or that I would be a victim of a smash and grab robbery a couple of years after that, with a lead pipe shattering my windshield in my car when I stopped at a light, alone in Miami. And nobody was in my life to hold me then, and I drove with broken glass all around me until I reached a friend's house in tears.
I couldn't know those things, or the ups and downs of my life to come. But I sure did know right then and there in that camping area in Sweden that life wasn’t as benign as I thought it had been a few minutes before. And that life, like bread, was not always what you thought it would be.
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Comments
Did you give him the money?
♥R
I've been lucky but I know women who were mugged for their handbag - snatch and run sort of thing.
Nice read/ R
Rated with hugs
I once had a minor incident in India. I was never in danger, though compromised to some extent, but I was glad the hubby was handy all the same. I can't seem to find a way to write about it...someday.
And Satori 1, that's a woman who plans ahead. Unfortunately my entire purse was stolen in Barcelona, and the smash and grabber, grabbed my purse, so there wasn't a chance to do much about either of those.
But I would advise not to carry much of value, and probably not carry a purse at all when traveling, whenever possible. One of those neck pouches is safest.
So, nice touch with that.
But back to the subject - how frightening, especially with your little boys so close by. I'm so glad your big ol' hubby was not only a big ol' hubby, but that he was gentle enough to know to hold you through your fear.
I'm so sorry that you had so many scary experiences with the darker side of life.
Outside Myself, yes, I did put this in a as a Tuesday food thing but I doubted many people would notice. I have that sly way about me, I guess. (Good to see you, btw. Hope all is going well!)
Lezlie
Sarah, scanner, sheila (the three s's) -- and Joan,
you never know, but once you venture forth you can try to make your luck, but you can't control everything.
Lezlie, I would not run after anyone who takes anything. Too dangerous. You might want to rethink that!
kittwarn, sorry you had to go through that too.
Maria, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your kind comment.
Not for nothing are these stories metaphors of your life. I am so glad that now you have such a wonderful man to hold you... in what should only be GOOD times!
Rated
Instead, the one and only time I've been robbed was while in an extremely safe, friendly, family-run bed and breakfast on the Oregon Coast! I've been there a dozen times before and since, and it is the kind of place where the owners remember you from year to year, there's a couple house cats, everyone shares meals together, and no one locks their doors. But this one time someone went in our room and stole the wallets out of our purses - but not our valuable cameras or other electronics. Very odd!!
I'm afraid that is about to change, however, and then we will learn "American exceptionalism" is merely another of those lies we tell ourselves.