I never understood what people meant when after being robbed they would say they felt violated.

I know now.

This weekend someone stole my wallet right out of my purse. It really shook my sense of security and yes, I did feel violated.

It wasn’t like I had left my purse open in the wrong place. Nor did I have it unzipped and just hanging off my shoulder, which I have done before. But not this time. This time it was zipped and it was put in what I thought was a safe place. It was tucked behind a chair in the back office of a store on the Country Club Plaza, where I enjoy working on weekends. Reasons I thought it was safe; One, it was put away; two I was at work and three I was on the Country Club Plaza.

For all you foolish folk who think crime only  happens in the hood, think again. Crime happens every where and if you didn’t know, I’m here to tell you.

I was working with another colleague that day. Her wallet was stolen too. These people who do this kind of thing know their craft. And they are good at it.  They really are brazen to just walk into the back office of a store, find the office, the purses, open them and take out the wallets, when there is a store full of people mulling around. BOLD.

Now I don’t know who did this dastardly deed but you know, after I calmed down from the shock of the whole thing and gave the matter some thought; hmmm, I could remember a few starnge things that happened right before I realized the wallets were gone.

The store was pretty busy, and there were a few ladies hanging out toward the back of the store. Both of us cashiers were at the register. You can't see the back room door from the register. We had been going in and out of that back room quite a bit. The door was open. But from inside the store you can't see the office. So, really there was no way to know the purses were in there. I was at the register when this woman walks pass me on her way out of the store. She looked back at me and said you know your phone is off the hook back there. I remember thinking that she had a weird expression on her face when she said that. I thought later that maybe she was trying to tell me something. Maybe she had seen someone go into the back room. Maybe she had been back there. I don't know.

But it wasn't until the store cleared out that I went in to the back looking for my wallet because I wanted to buy something. When I couldn't find my wallet I thought perhaps it had fallen out of my purse in the car. But when I couldn't find it there I got really nervous. When I came back into the store, the other cashier had checked her purse and noticed her wallet gone too.

We called police, our credit card companies, our banks and the boss. But even after filing a police report we kept looking in our purses, as if the wallets would some how magically appear. They didn't of course.

The scary thing is I kept going over and over in my brain trying to remember everything that was in my wallet and I just couldn't. I know there were things in there that are important to me. That's where the violation part comes in. I know I did have a few hundred in cash in my wallet. I had planned to take my son to Sante Cali Gon over the holiday weekend and many of those booths don't take credit cards. I was hoping that maybe the thief would just snatch the cash and toss away the wallet and the credit cards and someone would find it. I'm not that lucky.

The next day one of my credit card companies called to tell me that someone had tried to use the card several times after it had been stolen. I bet thieves count on people not noticing that the wallet is missing for at least a day so they have time to use them up and pitch them.

 So now I have to spend several days replacing all the stuff I lost, driver's lisence, my Y card and a bunch of other things. I'll never get my pictures of the kids (when they were little tykes) back though. That burns me up too.

But the worse part of it is that I'd never been robbed before. And now that I have, I just don't feel safe. I just feel like I'm naked and someone is peeping at me. It's so unsettling and I can't shake it.

It's like I'm experiencing another loss in my life. Not the wallet, or the stuff that was in it. It's my sense of safety, security and my peace of mind that are gone. And I don't know when, or if, you ever fully get that back.