Eastern European School of Life

If you had the privilege to be born and raised somewhere in the East of Europe, in a former Communist or recent developing country, it doesn’t mean you are stigmatized for live, that you cannot understand the 1^st Amendment of the US Constitution, or that you cannot understand what democracy means for “privileged” Westerns; it means you’ve learned a lesson more important for your existence – how to defend yourself wherever your steps might take you in no matter what frame of thinking!

Flashback: After traveling, living, and studying in 15 countries, in less than 4 years, I ended up on a Saturday night, in Señor Frogs, in Honolulu. Finally! After several months of hard work I got the chance to taste life, as a young student, for a few hours, with my friends.

Fine! The club was full of tourists and a few students re-experiencing the Waikiki night fun. We loved the place, we knew some waiters there, plus we felt like regulars, and we knew the place very well. We’ve got the table, some rounds of free drinks from our acquaintances, and we started dancing. Not for the first time, my purse was laying in the middle of the table and my roommate’s on a chair. Even if I never had a bad incident in US, I kept an eye on them, just in case. “Bad” habits never die… One of my buddies was getting friendly with some drinks – so, I considered him an extra protection for our ‘assets’. We were dancing right next to the table and there were not too many people close to it.

The plot: Because my buddy refused to dance (he is my favorite dance partner) I started to make fun and introduced some girls to him, so they could keep him company. Then I left... At one point, I realized that my friendly buddy was not at the table, and that my purse was not there anymore. I concluded that he hided it just to make me worry. I didn’t stress. When he came back I ask him to drop the joke, ‘cause I needed my phone. Of course he denied. I laugh. I checked everybody, I asked again, and things started to get serious. I realized it might not be a joke after all. My purse was missing for 5-10minutes.

In action: I told my waiter friend from Peru that my purse is missing. He assured me he will tell his colleagues. I didn’t see anything happening. I grabbed a cell phone and started to call myself. It was ringing! I went to Security. They all said they will take care of the problem. Only that I realized that nobody moved a finger. They were all preoccupied like the club was on a ticking bomb and my purse was the last thing on their minds. I kept calling myself. It was ringing and then going to my voice mail. My phone was somewhere. So, my purse was somewhere, too. I finally got to the chief of security – Mexican guy. He listened to my story: “It’s a black small purse. I have my ID, my cell, some money, my house and car keys in.” Nothing irrecoverable, but I wanted them back. I kept hearing in my mind: “You don’t steal from me! I’m from Romania! We invented the whole concept!!!” The chief of security called the chief of waiters – another Mexican. He heard my story, too. Said that he will inform his men. Hope was that somebody would bring my purse to Lost & Founds... But my phone is ringing!! He told me to send a message to my cell asking the person who took the purse to return it to Lost & Founds. Let’s do that, too! though… experience taught me is not the best idea… My phone was ringing!! I left them and I started to look around, on my own, under the tables and in garbage bins. It was a pretty funny image of this young lady, all fixed up, paying so much attention to the garbage in a club… and not even being drunk. Well…that was me, keep looking. At one point one of the handsome waiters saw what I was doing and approached me to make sure I am ok.

Here’s our conversation:

“Are you looking for something?”

“Yeah, my purse is missing, but my phone is still ringing!” (makes sense, isn’t it?!) I’ve got “the look” again, so I felt that I had to explain my logic: “My phone is in my purse and it is still ringing. You know? When you steal a cell phone…”

And here it is where he innocently said: “… I wouldn’t know…”

“Right! Well… I am from Europe and I know. When you steal a cell phone…, the first thing you do is to take the SIM card out. Or at least, you turn it off! Then when I would call it, it would go directly to the voice mail. Mine is ringing! That means the phone is still on, and it is somewhere!” I believe this is a perfectly Romanian logic…

So, I continued my search by looking into garbage bins, in Señor Frogs, in Honolulu… I went around the club, and when I finally looked into the bin next to the restroom… GOOOOOOLLLLDD! There it was!!! My pretty black purse, purchased in Madrid, Spain, in the winter of 2006, was reigning over the empty beer bottles and plastic cups in that garbage bin! I was looking for my purse for over 20 minutes, and it was still on top of the pop like it was just dropped… Inside there were my car and house keys, my cell phone, and my ID. No money. Whatevah! I considered I’ve been buying drinks on my account for some other people all night long. After all, my friends and I were having free drinks that night, too.

Happy end!