They say that you cannot consider yourself a Parisian until you have been pickpocketed. Using that as my measure, I can now say that I have been accepted into the fold of this big, beautiful city.

Last week I went out by myself in the evening. This rarely happens but I am in the process of looking for a volunteer job and I had an appointment at 6PM. It turned out that the volunteer organization was not a good fit for me. They were looking for volunteers to provide social and emotional support to people living with HIV and my French is not strong enough for me to be an asset in that kind of a situation. While it hadn’t been fruitful, I was feeling pleased that I’d had the meeting and conducted it in French.

Heading down the stairs into the metro I noticed that it had a different feel than what I was used to. I thought it seemed a bit dodgy. Waiting for the metro, I was looking at my phone and when the train arrived I put it into the front pocket of my coat and, I think, but maybe not, closed the snap.

There were no seats available and so I stood holding the bar as I usually do. Right before we started moving I found myself tightly surrounded by a group of men. I was aware that they were close around me on all sides and I couldn’t move. They also smelled quite bad. I pulled my arms in close to me, tucked my nose into my scarf, and pinched my bag by my side. 

At the next stop a few people exited and I moved myself to another spot on the car to find a little more room. I heard a phone alert and put my hand on my pocket to see if it was mine. There was no phone there. I checked my other pockets. I looked in my bag. I checked the same pocket a few more times, disbelievingly. It hit me. I realized what had happened.

I rode the rest of the way home looking at the other people on the train, watching the ads at the metro stops, thinking about what I should have done differently. I felt a little sick. There was absolutely nothing I could do besides sit there and think.

We had bought me a new phone before coming to Paris because we wanted one of us to have a good camera. H didn’t get a new phone. We couldn’t justify two. I thought about the fact that I wouldn’t have the good camera anymore. I wondered when I had last backed up my photos. I wondered if the thieves would find a way past the Face ID and if they would be able to access our personal information. I dreaded going home to tell H and the girls that I had fallen victim to the oldest trick in the book.

My technologically astute husband ensured that the phone would be wiped the moment it tried to connect to a network. He saved any photos that hadn’t already been backed up from Photostream to his phone. I changed my passwords for our banking websites. I notified the cell provider that the phone had been stolen, had the number disconnected and a replacement SIM card mailed to me. 

I had a rough week coming to terms with the fact that I had lost my phone. It wasn’t the object: I am not vested in having the latest technology. It was the inconvenience of being disconnected, the hassle of not having my lists, my podcasts, my online French-English dictionary and the dilemma of what to do about replacing my phone, but most of all it was the shame of not having been street smart enough: to have let myself be a target.

I have no hard feelings towards whoever stole my phone. I have told myself a story that might well be true and it helps me to feel better. I imagine that the young men live on the fringes of French society, have not been given a lot of opportunities, and have little hope for the future. I hope the day they got my phone was a good one for them because it was newish and in good condition. I imagine that they sold it on the black market, got themselves a bit of money and felt flush enough to buy burgers and fries for their families that night for dinner. I hope it made a tiny difference. 

It took a week to work through all of that. Now I am focusing on the positive:

1. We live. We learn. I won’t make this mistake again. 

2. Going cold turkey is the best way to learn how not to spend too much time looking at a screen. I am appreciating that I cannot check email except when I am at home. I am not tempted to read the news or look at Instagram while waiting for things: a metro, the girls leaving school, or a line-up.. While walking, I focus entirely on my surroundings. I am liking it and vow to maintain my low-screen lifestyle.

3.  I have learned that you can get a refund on unused AppleCare. 

4. This forced me to really think about my values. Do I replace my phone or buy something as cheap as possible? After much deliberation, I finally decided that I would replace the phone because of the pictures I can take. We are only here for a finite period of time and I want to remember it forever.  I expect that our girls will want a record of their time here too and our old phone doesn’t take pictures even remotely comparable to the one I had. A phone is a phone but pictures are memories.

5. Our American friends graciously agreed to bring me a phone from The States. I get to save the premium we would have paid on the same phone in Europe.

6. Now I can call myself at least part Parisian.

 P.S. I still do not have a new phone and have another week to practice my low-screen lifestyle. If I haven’t responded to your texts or WhatsApp messages it is because I have not received them. I don’t know if I ever will or if all the messages from this time will be forever lost in the ether. 

P.P.S I also had my wallet stolen in Paris. In the Fall. It was stolen out of my purse when I was at a restaurant. I learned from that mistake too. Hopefully I won’t have to experience every sort of theft before developing my street smarts.