Funny thing happened the other night. Me and Matt (a buddy from Revolver) went out last Tuesday to catch a couple shows and drink some beer. On our way out to Bellavista (a cheap, college-y, somewhat Bohemian area in Santiago) we noticed a pile of trash on the sidewalk that contained a few potentially useful items. We agreed that if the loot was there on the way home at the end of the night, then we'd snag it.
So we forged ahead for a night of cheap beer, good music, bad food and the usual debauchery that comes with a late night in Bellavista. When we called it quits, we walked back only to find that the trash treasure had been rummaged through and the nightstand Matt had had his eye on was gone. We did some more digging and I uncovered a wallet. It was empty, black, velcro - nothing remarkable. I put the wallet in my back pocket, because I have a tendency to pick up strange stuff when I've got a buzz on (like crabs...just kidding...bad joke). I figured the empty wallet in my back pockett would be, at the very least a decoy for my treks through the shadier jungles of Santiago.
I grabbed my backpack (which contained my laptop) from Matt's place and set off for home - which is about a 15 minute walk down Parque Bustamante - a nice park, but pretty sketchy at night. Normally when I'm out that late with my laptop, I take a cab, but none of them were stopping, so I forged ahead, angry and ready to run at a moment's notice (I've found that the more pissed-off you look when walking alone at night, the less likely people are to jack you; kind of like when George Costanza pretended to be stressed and angry all the time at the office so people would avoid asking him questions and think he was working hard).
One of the charming characteristics to Parque Bustamente is the presence of multiple sects of "working women" (prostitutes) that gather on three to four street corners late at night along my walk home. It's usually nothing threatening and they've rarely said much during past journeys. Not tonight.
I made it past the first group of 'em with no problem, but the second pack livened up at the sight of me, whistling and clicking at the fresh meat (yo). I tried to hurry past, but one worker bee latched on to my arm, begging me for something, rubbing me provactively and strolling with me for five to nine paces. I squirmed out of her clutches said, "No gracias," and looked around to make sure there wasn't anybody about to jump out of a bush with a tire iron or worse.
The coast seemed clear, and I proceeded to check my pockets and backpack to make sure everything was in place. All appeared to be in order, except...
the decoy wallet in my back pocket was gone. Goddamit. Didn't last five minutes.
I turned around to see if I could catch a glimpse of their facial expressions when they realized they made off with an empty wallet, but saw no one and wasn't about to go back. I laughed out loud the rest of the walk home, chalked up a point for myself on the big board and made a note to try and obtain decoys for everything I own.
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