A slightly less enjoyable day in London yesterday:
My wallet was stolen on the train.
I was aware of the dangers of pickpockets on the London trains, so I had my hand on my wallet as we made our way back to our new Airbnb in Notting Hill. But as the train came to a stop, it lurched forward, so I reached out and grabbed the pole ahead of me to avoid falling, and in that moment, a man (and maybe two) bumped me, and about three seconds later, as the doors to the train opened, I realized my wallet was gone.
It happened that fast.
I turned to identify the man, but it was impossible in the sea of people behind me already exiting the train. Just like that, my wallet and everything inside was gone.
I couldn’t believe it.
It’s also very on-brand. As much as I hate to admit it, these things seem to happen to me all the time.
One of my friends recently said that had she not known me well and personally witnessed some of the craziness that seems to routinely befall me, she’d assume I’m making it all up.
“It’s like the world refuses to let you live a normal life,” she said.
But robberies like this happen on the London trains and streets often. We had been warned about them. I was aware of the danger.
My instantaneous, and still lingering, response was anger at myself for being so stupid. Being robbed when you don’t see it coming is one thing, but when you are actually thinking about the security of your possessions and worried about pickpockets, and yet you’re still robbed in that very moment of awareness, it’s easy to feel foolish and angry at oneself.
As I beat myself up and apologized to Elysha and the kids for being so dumb, Charlie, who was leading us through the London train system, plowed forward onto our connecting train.
There was nothing that could be done.
As we made our way through the tunnels to our second train, I followed and raged as Clara tried to console me.
We boarded our second train for Notting Hill. I sat down beside Elysha. She took my hand and told me it was okay.
I continued to rage at myself for being so careless and stupid, then I decided to put those feelings aside and get to work.
I knew exactly what had been stolen:
An M&T bank card
An AMEX card
A Capital One card
My driver’s license
My medical insurance card
My dental insurance card
My Barnes & Noble member card
My AAA member card
The claim ticket for our car back in New York City
$6 in cash
By the time the train came to a stop 15 minutes and five stops later, all three cards had been canceled via their apps.
AMEX and Capital One had already re-issued me new cards and added virtual versions of those new cards into my Apple wallet on my phone, ready for use.
My AAA card also exists digitally in my Apple wallet, so although I will order a new card, I can still use the virtual card on my phone.
My M&T card was frozen and required a five-minute call to have a new card re-issued.
While I made that call, Elysha called and arranged to have my insurance cards replaced. They will arrive at my home soon. She also filed a police report in the unlikely event that the wallet turns up or I need a police report for insurance purposes.
I’ll need to go to AAA to obtain a new driver’s license, which will be annoying. Happily, the woman who handled these things at my local AAA is the parent of a former student, and she always makes the process seamless and happily takes me without an appointment, so it will require time, but not much.
I’ll likely need to physically enter a Barnes & Noble to replace my member card, so more effort will be required for that one, but we are in the bookstore all the time, so it won’t be much trouble.
The claim ticket for our car, parked in a hotel garage near JFK airport, is gone, but I always take a photo of my parking ticket in case it’s ever lost. I’ve never lost one in the many years I’ve been traveling and always wondered if I was being overly cautious when taking these photos, but apparently not.
I’ll be able to retrieve my car without a problem.
The $6 in cash is gone. It was actually Charlie’s cash that he asked me to add to his own digital wallet. Otherwise I would’ve had no cash on me whatsoever.
So remarkably, in the span of five train stops, I had canceled all my cards and prevented a single purchase from happening. Two of those cards were already re-issued, and virtual copies were already on my phone, ready to go, less than 15 minutes after the actual robbery.
My new bank card will be waiting for me when I arrive home.
Being robbed isn’t fun, but technology sure makes it easier to move on quickly.
I’m attempting to expedite the physical versions of my credit cards since one day after returning home from London, I head back out for a weeklong trip to the West Coast to speak at a conference and spend the weekend with a friend in Washington.
I’d like to have physical cards on-hand for that trip.
That will require two more phone calls this evening, which is annoying but doable, so other than still feeling stupid and angry with myself, the robbery cost me about an hour of my time and $6 in cash.
I even have a new wallet ready to go. I have a backup wallet — the exact same brand and style — back home in a drawer, waiting for me. I bought two, expecting the first to eventually wear out and need a replacement, so it’s ready to be refilled as my re-issued cards begin to arrive.
Although the robbery ended the day poorly, I’ll try to focus on the better parts of the day:
I ate breakfast at an Indian restaurant for the first time in my life and enjoyed the food. So did everyone else, especially Elysha.
I took Charlie to a train station so he could spend an hour rail-fanning, which is akin to trainspotting — one of his favorite hobbies. We met a kind station supervisor who was happy to allow him on the platform with his recording equipment so he could capture video of a multitude of London trains going by.
He was thrilled.
I did some Duolingo lessons as I watched and waited.
Then the entire family went on the London Eye — a 450-foot ferris wheel along the Thames that offers views of the entire city. Elysha and Clara are very afraid of heights, but lest they allow fear to shrink their lives, they boarded the enclosed compartment and took the 30-minute ride with Charlie and me.
It was a highlight of the day.
After moving from our hotel in central London to the Airbnb in Notting Hill, we headed off to the Bloomsbury neighborhood, where we visited three bookstores, including “Gay’s the Word” — a famed LGBTQ store that Clara was dying to see. We ate our best diner so far in a fantastic Italian restaurant and ended our day with gelato and smiles.
I paid for the gelato with my new AMEX card in my Apple Wallet.
Our Airbnb, it turns out, is on a famed street:
The very spot where we are staying was used in filming a famous scene in “Love, Actually.”
It’s Christmas Eve, and Mark (Andrew Lincoln) arrives at the home of Juliet (Keira Knightley), who has recently married his best friend, Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
Mark plays Christmas music from a portable stereo so Peter will assume they’re listening to carol singers, then he silently flips through large handwritten cards confessing that he is in love with Juliet, while acknowledging that he expects nothing from her.
It’s a slightly controversial scene, as some see Mark as a monster for betraying his best friend with his declaration of love and the kiss that Juliet gives him as a betrayal of her husband, but those are people who know nothing of romance, love, and the heart.
All that happened on the very cobblestones we step onto when leaving this house, in front of our very door.
Elysha knows how to plan a vacation.
It’s admittedly unsettling to be robbed, and a certain degree of safety has been taken from me and my family. As we leave the Airbnb this morning to explore the neighborhood, we will all be holding onto our possessions a little more tightly and paying a little more attention to those around us. We will be slightly less carefree and slightly more jaded as we continue to explore this fantastic city.
It’s not going to ruin a great day we have planned, including a Beatles tour on Abbey Road and a showing of Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labor’s Lost” at The Globe tonight, but it will remind us that as we are enjoying ourselves, not everyone around us is as kind, lawful, and decent as we’d like.
Unfortunate, but not enough to ruin a spectacular day that Elysha has planned.
The good news:
If your wallet is ever stolen, technology has made the problem decidedly less onerous and almost instantaneously corrected. Thanks to my credit card companies and their systems for handling these problems, we won’t skip a beat today, and other than some time spent on the phone last night and this evening, our vacation proceeds as planned.
Huzzah.
