No. 9: I've Never Been Robbed by Two Italian Teenagers on the Gran Via

But I stood there while my brother was.

No, it's not that bad, really. This was not a robbery, per se, in the sense that weapons were used. The only assault that took place was the furtive slipping of hands into the pants pocket of a man who, ordinarily, would have little trouble detecting even the slightest touch of female fingers near his nether regions. Except, ahem, this time.

I'm somewhat embarassed to relate this story, as it reveals us as rubes of such arresting stupidity that we probably should have been immediately expelled from the country. But I'm in for a dime, in for a dollar, thanks to Wasteland Fan and this meme.

Those of you who have traveled overseas are no doubt familiar with jet lag. Jet lag is not merely benign exhaustion. It hurts. I hate jet lag. When I have it, my skull is a hotel room being trashed by a rock band and my brain is the guitar they are bashing against the wall.

That afternoon, it was a dreadful combination of stark interference with circadian rhythms, caffeine withdrawal, dehydration from the arid airline environment, and the surreality of being in a new country, which was only magnified by the other issues.

Oh, my. I apologize, but the mere recollection of all this is cause for a nap. Excuse me for a moment or two.

That lasted a good bit longer than I anticipated. Here it is, seven hours later. Incidentally, that is approximately the amount of time I should have spent sleeping after I checked into my hotel, but I was with my brother, and my brother believes that life is short, and by God you can sleep when you're dead. He had also availed himself of the first opportunity to sample Spanish espresso only a short distance from passport control, and so was hopping impatiently from one foot to another like a three year-old who has to hold a bladder full of pee. But I am not unsympathetic to my brother's joie de vivre, and so I allowed myself to be dragged out of my bed and onto the Gran Via after a scant two hour nap.

We walked for awhile, and were abruptly accosted by two young women waving a map in our faces and speaking very quickly in a language we did not understand.

"No hablo --" started TH Brother.

"Somos Italianos," said Map-Waving Teen #1 with an understanding grin.

She then held forth for several seconds in what sounded like Italian, and probably translated as, "You stupid fuckers. Right now I have my hand in your pocket and I'm relieving you of several hundred euros and your Visa card. I'm going to spend it all on manchego cheese and serrano ham, because after all, we are in Spain and I have this feeling that you are too big of an idiot to figure out how to cancel your American credit card from a foreign country," all the while insistently waving her map in our faces and begging for direction. My brother, being above all else a nice damn guy, kept trying to look at their map and help them.

Meanwhile, consistent with my generally dark outlook on life, I was clutching my bag to my side with a death grip, smiling and nodding. Then, like farts in the wind, they were gone. As quickly as they had found us, they left, proceeding down the Gran Via and pretending to point out landmarks to each other.

Approximately three seconds after they had left, TH Brother reached into his pocket and noticed that the contents of it were gone. I erupted. "Those little shits! They pickpocketed you!" I looked down and noticed that the outer zipper of my bag was open. Fortunately, I had put nothing in there.

"Go after them!" I hissed at TH Brother. He looked at me as though I had suggested that he open his fly and take a whiz on the Gran Via. But we went. And we caught them. And we...

Asked them if they had taken his wallet.

Yes, we asked them. The fog of exhaustion and fish-out-of-water surreality had closed in on both of us, and apparently we expected them to say, "Oh yes, as a matter of fact I do have your wallet! Now how did I end up with that?" and hand it right on over.

Instead, as any remotely intelligent thieves would do, they gave him an offended look that clearly suggested they found him unbalanced and would be forced to scream if he did not leave them alone. They accompanied this look with a flood of Italian that must have translated to, "Why yes I did take your wallet. You are probably the stupidest people I've ever robbed. No one has ever actually caught up with me before and asked me if I took their wallet! But I really must go now, because I have a great deal of shopping to do with your Visa card. Bye now."

Still confused, we just kind of stood there. Then we trudged back to the hotel, where the desk staff, clearly annoyed at our idiocy, put us in touch with the police. The police put their English-speaking officer on the phone who, bored, took town TH Brother's account of the incident. We were informed that he was required to go to the police station on the Puerta del Sol to sign the police report.

We found the station. Behind the desk was an overstuffed police veteran -- apparently a universal fixture in police stations worldwide -- and we addressed him. In his best college Spanish, TH Brother said, "If you please, I am here for to sign..." and thrust the paper bearing the report number over the counter.

The beefy cop actually rolled his eyes at us. Fat prick, I thought. I smiled at him.

He grabbed the paper from TH Brother and began typing the number into his computer. After a few seconds, he started peering at the computer. He was reading, and as he did so, a smirk began to spread over his face. This was almost too much to be borne.

He dragged the process out, clearly enjoying our discomfort. He no doubt expected we would be back before long. After all, we had managed to get ourselves robbed in the first hour of our vacation -- all things considered, a display of almost breathtaking incompetence. Given that, I suppose it was not unreasonable to conclude that we might be spending more of our trip at the Puerta del Sol police station.