The McDonald's Bandit Strikes Again

A couple days ago (August 23), I was standing in line at McDonald's waiting to order. I carry a shoulder bag with me pretty much wherever I go, so it was hanging at my side as usual. I unzipped the pocket where I keep my money, pulled out my wallet to pay for our food and then replaced it. Unfortunately, I neglected to zip the pocket closed, leaving the contents vulnerable. Someone evidently noticed that and took advantage of the opportunity. A couple minutes later, I reached for my wallet for some reason and it was gone. I looked for it carefully in all the other pockets of my bag and in my shorts, but it was nowhere to be found. I immediately told the lady working at the cash register and she passed along the news to the manager who came out to talk to me. I explained what happened and he immediately called the police. He also told me there was a surveillance camera aimed at the cash registers that might reveal the culprit. We had time to eat and for Christy and the kids to head for home before the police arrived. When they did, I rode with them to the station (For the benefit of those not accustomed to it and to make the story more interesting, one of the policeman was carrying an automatic weapon).

Thus began the waiting process (I was at the police station for about 3 hours). While I was waiting, I called my friend, Sergey, who quickly came to my aid (He works only a couple blocks away from the police station) and eventually, we got in to talk to a detective who took down all the details of what happened before promising us that someone would return to McDonald's to review the surveillance tapes. I walked home and remained in kind of a semi-comatose state the rest of the day.

To be honest (Please don't judge me too harshly without fully understanding our lives here), I was extremely angry at the Russian people at the time of the theft, so angry that I was shaking all over. If someone would have given me a ticket out of the country at that moment, I'm afraid I might have grabbed it and run for the border. Our time in Elektrostal has been everything except easy. It seems like we've only been given enough time to come up for a desperate gulp of air before another stressful situation pushes us back under. Of course, we've had some highlights at the same time, like our growing friendship with Sergey and Rina, our developing relationship with a wonderful Russian family preparing to move in next door to us and Leo, a great friend to Ethan and Megan. All the good things stem around relationships, and that's what keeps us going. That said, please continue to pray for us, for our cultural sensitivity, our physical safety and our emotional stability.

Thanks to Christy's actions while I was waiting in the police station, our credit cards were quickly blocked and our replacement cards are to arrive at our door on Tuesday. Fortunately, Christy's check card is not linked to mine, so we still have that to get money from an ATM, so other than losing a couple hundred dollars and a bunch of receipts for this month's expense report, we're in pretty good shape. Praise God my passport was not stolen.

Patrick

Picture - This is the one and only McDonald's in Elektrostal, just a few blocks from our house. We've been hit twice here by the McDonald's bandit, once last December when Christy's purse was stolen and now a second time with my wallet.