The Stolen Spreadsheet
When Odysseus sailed the sea and his sirens called, he had himself tied to the mast and sailed on by. When we faced the Adriatic Sea, we succumbed to the blue and swam.
Here’s a picture I didn’t take that day, when my spreadsheet was blown away…
The water is turquoise within three breakwaters at Pane-Pomodoro Beach in Bari, Italy. With the sun still high, sunbathers dot the beach, and swimmers drift in the blue. A woman is wading back toward shore from the breakwater, with her chair above her head. Two girls in small bikinis play, one with her cell phone from the sand, the other knee-deep and striking poses. Four lifeguards lounge nearby, careless now that the kids are back in school. We’ve been drifting in the just-cool water ourselves, and I’ve brought the camera to catch the tranquility before we continue our drive. We’re traveling; it’s day 16 of 90.
I never took that picture because of other moments I didn’t capture with the camera. After swimming, we had changed and were walking to the car to retrieve the camera when I commented on something curious.
“There’s a police car up ahead, near where we parked the car.”
Jake’s reply was light, “I hope it’s not related.”
The police car was double-parked. Two policemen were facing our direction, their stances wide.
I continued, “Well, that’s weird. There’s a car with its side door standing open.” It was ours.
Had I not been stunned, had I been uninvolved, I might have taken a picture of the policemen standing side by side, resigned and grim, searching the faces of approaching strangers. I can still see them in my mind, in the moment they read that glint of realization in us, as we recognized ourselves as the owners of this bad situation.
Although I didn’t document the damage done that day, the image is sharp: the side back window vacant, fringed by jagged glass. Piles of shards inside and on the ground, heaped like sand. The trunk empty, but for scraps that fell from the smash-and-grab: a hairbrush, some shirts on hangers, a pair of shoes, our thoughtless trust, and the camera, miraculously hiding in a corner of the trunk.
This is a photo I would have deleted, not a scene I’d want to save: It’s an office at the police station. Two desks with two computers, a vacant window high behind the desks, looking out on a blank gray wall. Nothing on the inside walls. The policemen from the street, with their sympathetic eyes, delivered us to these two at the station, neither one of whom has found a smile. The round-faced one half-hides behind his computer. The other one is dark-haired with streaks of gray, a tucked-in shirt, and procedures to follow. We made a list of the largest of our losses — a police report. That procedure is finished, and Streaks of Gray is anxious now, leaning toward his partner. His voice is insistent and perplexed. They’re looking at us sideways, as if they’re wondering what kind of scam we might be playing, now that their paperwork is done. Their heads nod toward Jake, who’s on the phone in an endless trail of transfers, pleading with scripted voices not to drop this one call they agreed to let us make — to the automated kingdom of VISA to terminate the credit cards.
What was the lowest moment? Was it when we left the police station and had to use our precious time and money to find a place to pay to park? Streaks of Gray had already dismissed us, while Round-Face had seen us to the top of the stairs inside.
Jake had asked, in jest, “Shall we come back tomorrow to get our things? Do you ever find them?”
Round-Face had shaken his head and waved us out.
We’d walked down the steps and out the door, with our wet swimsuits in bags and a copy of the police report. It was Friday, 4:00 pm. We asked a policeman by the gate if we could leave the car where it was parked while we found a bank to change dollars into Euros. Jake had three $100 bills zipped into his belt.
“No,” he said. “Only for police.” They were done with us.
The banks were closed. We had paid for an airbnb, but we’d lost our contacts with our phones. We headed for the airport in the broken rental car, thinking to trade it for a whole one for the remaining day we hadn’t used.
Perhaps this was the lowest point: at the airport, when the rental folks, although sympathetic to our plight, couldn’t give us another car without a driver’s license. We were at the airport now, but with no car. We had to change the money there; $300 shrank to Euro 180. Let that be a lesson about changing money at an airport.
We counted what we had:
- Euro 180
- A pre-paid airbnb in Trani that we couldn’t find or contact
- A pre-paid flight to Treviso the next day that we couldn’t board without our passports
- A pre-paid hotel in Treviso the following night
- A pre-paid shuttle from Treviso to Ljubljana the day after
- Two pre-paid days in Ljubljana — if we could get there
- Friends meeting us in Ljubljana on Sunday.
And I had lists. My mind was filling with them. Desperate for pen and paper, I collected fragments, any piece of white space big enough to write on. I kept them in a plastic bag for when I could find a pen. We collected plastic bags as well, like treasures. Eventually, I stole a pen from a hotel desk and wrote down items as they came to me.
The lowest moment was later. It came well after everything was stolen, when I realized how I’d lost coherent thought. Lists were all I had; I couldn’t form a sentence. Waking at night, unable to sleep, my thoughts were fragments. Thinking in full sentences again came slowly. Much of this little story is best told through the lists I made…
What was stolen: 2 suitcases, 2 backpacks, and a purse, all fully loaded. 500 Euros, $700, passports, credit cards, driver’s licenses, international driver’s licenses, sleep, 3 iPhones, an iPad, a MacBook, our equanimity, prescription medicines, necklaces, two headlamps, charging cords, a speaker, walking sticks, four good pens and a highlighter, make-up, toothpicks, eye glass cleaners, watches, two kindles with unread books, a whistle, and an Ace bandage, our laminated itinerary and my favorite pillow, the black pepper grinder, a multi-tool and a flashlight, a chef’s knife and a sharpener, the bandaids and Imodium, all our guide books and phrase books, everything we weren’t wearing except wet bathing suits… and it’s better not to think of all that’s gone
What we still had with us at the time
- Wet bathing suits, travel towels, and water shoes
- For me: a skirt, a shirt, underwear, a necklace, and my flip-flops
- For Jake: long pants and underwear, a t-shirt, socks and shoes, a belt with three $100 bills zipped inside
- Two dry bags
- Sunscreen
- A bottle 1/4 full of water
What they didn’t grab
- Three of Jake’s shirts on hangers
- A pair of Jake’s slacks
- Jake’s vest
- A container almost full of laundry soap
- My brush
- My walking shoes, without their socks
- The camera
What we bought with our 180 Euros
1. In the Bari airport: a toothbrush, toothpaste, water, and lunch
2. At a grocery store in Treviso: a nail file, a crummy nail clipper, socks, Q tips, bandaids for the blister I got from wearing my shoes without socks, and a plastic bag
4. Dinner at the hotel in Treviso
5. Lunch at the Chinese coffee shop, where the manager made a call for us
What we gave away
- A Spiderco knife
- A swiss army knife
- The laundry soap
What we did for entertainment between Bari and Ljubljana
- Watch people on their cell phones
- Make up stories about people
- Notice folks whose feet hurt
- Strategize
Things we knew but learned again
- Never put everything in one place
- Never leave valuables in a car
- Assume the worst
- There are kind people in this world
Things to be endlessly grateful for
- Having each other
- Having two fabulous, tech-savvy children
- Experience and education
- Everything we didn’t lose
- Being white and American
- Clean sheets and toothpaste
- The lesson of how lucky we are
Times when we felt our privilege
- When the police asked us where we were from
- When we shared our bad luck at the train station
- When we needed boarding passes
- When we needed to fly
- When we checked into hotels
In the end, the lowest points lasted only hours or days or, in the case of my thoughts, a few weeks. The upside was learning that what we lost was nothing. We were without things, but never without resources. What we gained was a precious glimpse — a glimpse of what it’s like to lose everything. To lose everything and have no resources: that’s a desolation that would last.
We succumbed to the siren of the blue sea but ultimately sailed unscathed, with a kind of understanding that no spreadsheet can provide.
