Perspective

Having ridden on the subway for the last five decades without having a gold chain ripped from my neck, an engagement ring taken from my finger at knife point or a wallet surrepticiously lifted from my pocketbook, I believed myself invulnerable to crime. Not crime everywhere. Just in New York City. When I travel, I take the requisite precautions. My cash and credit cards are in a moneybelt that I tuck inside my jeans. When I pay for something, I stick my right hand down the front of my pants and unzip the money belt with my left hand. After the cashiers stop laughing and hand me my change, I again unzip the belt with my left hand and replace the change with my right. These maneuvers will not get me summa cum laude at Miss Porter's, but I've never had anything stolen. On Friday, I received a comeuppance for my cockiness. On the D train, going toward Borough Park, I was engrossed in reading "The Goldfinch" on my I- Phone. The "Goldfinch" is an 800 page tome weighing 4.6 pounds. Not only does reading it on the I-phone spare me a hernia, but, since an I-phone page holds only the print of a paragraph, I have to use my right pointer to swipe to a new paragraph every 2 seconds. Consequently, I've developed a muscle in my pointer which I'm sure I'll be able to parley into something lucrative, although at the moment the only use I have come up is scratching myself, which I was able to do adequately before I employed technology. As the train pulled into the 9th Street Station, a teenager snatched the phone from my hand and ran off the train. I was stunned. Immediately, I was surrounded by soothsayers. The woman opposite me, said, " I knew he was up to no good. There are a million empty seats and he was standing right next to you." The woman two seats away from her said," I can't believe it. I thought he was going to do something. It's just terrible." While I admired them for their clairvoyance and was grateful for their commiseration and empathy, since they both were certain he was about to rob me, I would have appreciated their using their prescience to alert me. I have been known to get unhinged over trivial matters. When Verizon charged me a $5 late fee on my last bill, I went ballistic and threatened to switch to T-Mobile unless they rescinded the charge, even though T-Mobile doesn't work in my apartment, my office, or anywhere in the southern portion of the State. At CVS,when my 2 liter Pepsi on sale for 69 cents rang up $1.99, I threatened the manager with a Consumer's Affairs complaint. Thus, I would have bet the price of an I- phone, that I'd be pretty riled up over this. But I'm glad I'm not a betting woman, because I wasn't in the least bit upset. I reasoned that in the grand scheme of things, the theft of a cell phone is trivial and easily dealt with by shelling out a small fortune to Verizon. Why be upset over this when I have a complex problem to deal with: Do I record Downton Abbey and watch Homeland and Masters of Sex, watching The Good Wife later in the week? Do I watch Downton Abbey and watch everything else on Demand? Do I unplug my tv entirely, giving myself time to read the New Yorkers I haven't from 1982 to date? It may have taken me a lifetime, but I'm so glad I have perspective.