My Favorite Purse Was Stolen!!!

The purse I am holding in the picture above is my favorite purse. (the view above is actually the back of the purse)  It was a gift from Chip.  A Marc Jacobs purse that every where I go people comment on, that I take EVERYWHERE, it holds a ton, goes with everything, reminds me of him, and I really love it to pieces.  He bought it in China for me as a gift when he went back after we had moved back to the states and it was just a sentimental piece if you will that I have become very fond of.

Well, yesterday my worst nightmare happened.  We were in a rush to get Cash to school, but completely out of milk and Target was on the way to school from our errands and so we ran in quick.  We grabbed our milk and our ziploc bags and were out of the store in less than 5 minutes.  While loading the 3 kids up into the car I thought to myself I should put my purse in first, but already had Ivy in my arms, already had Cash in my arms (yes I was getting all 3 out of the cart at the same time to try to rush things along) and so was a little consumed.  Ivy was crying, Cash was talking, Griffin was needing something so it was a bit chaotic.  I pushed the cart to the same spot it was when I got there - the front of the car at my left front bumper and hopped in the car and zoomed off to Cash's school.  We went about the rest of the day with not another thought about it.  

It wasn't until dinner that I realized something was amiss.  We went out to the car to go grab some dinner and upon loading the kids up I realized my purse wasn't in front of Ivy's seat like I always put it.  Then we looked in the car and couldn't find it anywhere.  I pretty much tore the car up looking under every seat, nook and cranny thinking it had to be there.  I thought I had remembered getting it but then couldn't remember putting it in.  I was panicking.  Trying to stay calm I called Target and asked if it had been turned in.  They said no, well I figured we would go look in the parking lot and see if perhaps the cart was still sitting there with it.  Not likely since it had now been over 6 hours, but worth a shot right?!  

This time I loaded the car up with the kiddos without their shoes, Ivy had no pants on, no socks or shoes, and no bow, and we all looked haggard I am sure.  We rushed down there and went looking in every cart we could see but of course nothing.  I was getting a little crazy at this point.  There were two guys in the parking lot collecting all the carts and I asked them, and they said they hadn't seen a purse, so we went upstairs and started pulling carts out and looking for it there but I knew it was not going to happen - there were hundreds of carts and I figured if it had been found it would have been turned in this morning, or stolen, and most likely stolen.

We went to lost and found and they again said they had nothing.  They would call me if they found anything.  I was devastated, and now without any money at all to even get dinner the kids and I headed back home - i felt lost without my id, my cc, my purse!!!

I got home and was in such a state of shock and upset and anger at myself for letting this happen that we looked in a couple drawers and rounded up some cash and went to Taco Bell to get the kids the taco and burrito they had wanted.  While sitting there I tried to think of what to do next.

Well, we got the food, came home, ate, and I put Griffin and Ivy to bed.  Then when Emily got home I went down to Target again and asked them to look at the security camera tapes to see if they could at least see if anyone had taken it.  They would check for me, but the guy was on his lunch break and they wouldn't let me look at them anyways, so I went out and was checking out the trash cans on my way (yes people were looking at me weird as I kind of thumbed through them looking like a scavenger, hoping that maybe the guy just took the cash out and threw the purse away!) No luck here either. 

I drove home in tears, very dejected and upset.  I called my mom and she was trying to help me with what to do and I was mean and nasty and after I got off the phone realized this was taking control of me and I wasn't being who I wanted to be.  I had to sit in the garage for a few minutes getting myself under control before I could go in the house and act rational and work on the next steps - cancelling ALL my cards and figuring out how to get my identity back.

As I was doing that the guy called me back from Target - a really nice gentleman named Karl and told me they did look at the tapes and they saw that a guy did in fact take it less than 5 minutes after I had left.  I asked if it was the sketchy man in the suburban that had been sitting there the whole time I was in the store and then when I left and he said no.  It was another shopper who exited the store about 3 minutes after me and when walking to his car noticed and did a double take of my cart.  He walked over and saw it was a purse and picked it up and walked toward the back of the parking lot with it.  They couldn't see what he then did because the security cameras didn't cover where he went with it.

So yep - it was stolen - by a dishonest, loser guy who I want to punch in the face.  

I don't care - take the cash out, take the bracelet and necklace, even take the 4 Mac lipsticks I had in there (2 were brand new and so hadn't taken them out of my purse yet or even worn them), but really did you have to still my love note I keep in there and have had since Chip very first told me he loved me 8 years ago?!  Really did you have to take my temple recommends - esp the one I keep just cuz I love that it says Beijing on it, or the one that I have from my wedding day, and also my current one!  Really did you need to take my drivers license, insurance cards, and my pictures of my cute kids.  Take the CC - and the gift cards I have in there, cuz I cancelled those, but I really wanted that purse and all my sentimental stuff that you don't care about and can't even use!

He didn't use any of the credit cards or debit card I had in there, and now they are all completely useless and he can't anyways, so was it really just for the cash and is my purse in some trash can at a gas station?!  I will never know, but I am sad that he took it and didn't go turn it in.  I am sad that a few worldly things were more important then thinking about how this would affect the person who owned this stuff.  I have reordered my Drivers license, have all my CC stopped and reordered, etc etc and so I will be fine that way.  But I am sad that I don't have the things that meant the most.

Thanks to my friend Cecia I had taken my SS card out of my wallet not too long before.  She told me that I should never have that in there in case my wallet ever got stolen and how hard I wouldn't be able to get another one and how important it was to put it in my safebox.  I didn't think much of it at the time because I even said my wallet will never get stolen, but later on I was getting into our safebox for something and so I took it out and put it in there.  I am so grateful!

I am also grateful to have the knowledge that altho this is inconvenient, and made me angry, and put me out for a night and was a huge hassle to deal with last night - at least it is fixable, it is just stuff, and if that is the worst thing that happens all week I am luckier than a lot of people.

I am grateful to be healthy (mostly) and have healthy kids, to have family and a husband, who instead of getting mad at me and going off at what I should have done so this didn't happen, was loving and helped me fix everything with the cards and gave me a massage after knowing how stressed I had become.  I am grateful that I am able to deal with this stuff and it wasn't worse than this.

Hope today is better!  And from now on I will put my purse FIRST into the car, before my children - since I know I won't leave them in the cart at the store!

Happy Halloween's Eve!!!