Stolen dignity

Where is my handbag? A pretty stupid question you might think if you have never before seen hysteria.
How the f888 should I know? The stupid answer to earlier question. She starts lifting and moving people's stuff from chairs and tables. Boyfriends take offense. Girls want to snatch her eyeballs out of her sockets. I am thinking she is drunk and has misplaced her handbag.
Then she starts screaming. Who has taken my handbag? she is pacing all over the place, crouching under tables. Those with skirts are closing their legs in a hurry and wondering who this crazy chic is.
About 10 minutes pass as she scours the entire pub for her handbag, only not to find it. The tears start as the realization it has been stolen sinks in. They come thick and fast. Racking sobs.
I try to comfort her. She is cursing and swearing and fighting me off. I engage a bouncer and we ask around for her handbag. No luck. I ask that we leave. We indeed leave. After a hundred paces she dashes back to the pub. Another thorough search. She is moving around like one possessed. I am distressed. Between sobs I am appraised of the contents of the bag. Money, passport, id, something she calls ray bans (sunglasses I come to know later), office keys, home keys, pads (yeah, gloves off - embarassment has no place here)...and so on and so forth. Education each day gentlemen. There was a time when female MPs raised such dust because the Honorable Kaparo (or rules of the house - don't know, don't care) did not allow them in the chambers with their handbags; And I thought they were just being dramatic. Only to have on my hands a completely hysterical woman. Who would have thought a handbag is something so central to a woman's person?

Meanwhile, she is sitting on the pavement, then abruptly standing. Running about kicking stuff, punching walls. Talking, cursing and crying. A wise man told me when women are like this the best thing to do is watch. And keep silent. So I watched. I asked her if I can pay a taxi to drop her home? No. She does not have keys. I asked her what she wants to do then? Stay on the street all night. Huh? So I asked her if she will come with me till daybreak. She agreed.

I open my door, switch on the lights and she goes ...your house is a ** mess! where is your bed? Off she goes. I stick to one side of the bed, and her to the other. Somewhere in the dark hour of three-to-four am she says her pad has soaked and is about to break. Just f888ing great. I put on the lights and move around looking for something. What was I looking for? Pads? And in a guys house? Sh88 I have never before handled this kind of drama. Do you have toilet paper? I get her toilet paper, shuffle out and start opening and closing drawers to distract my deeply disturbed head.

Morning:
I am swinging my legs to the side of the bed as I get up. I am trying to get to the closet to get my trousers.
Please don't look!
The very thing you should not say if you want someone not to look. So I look. Tissue with spots of blood. It was a new milestone for my abilities to remain composed (or to at least appear composed). I shrugged in a matter-of-fact fashion as if it was a trivial, everyday occurrence. It was the best I could do to save the deeply embarrassed chic more embarrassment.

But she is a different breed though. She smiles sadly and asks me to buy her a pack of Always. Go figure. A hang-over dude asking the motherly lady at the tuck shop to hand over a pack of Always. She looked at me, bemused, wicked grin dancing at the corners of her mouth . I must have looked like a thoroughly hen-pecked boyfriend of some domineering woman.

A shower and general clean-up and she can afford a smile and even mildly joke about the whole incident. Unbelievable strength of character.

If you are a thief (and even if you are about to die of hunger), please do not part a woman with her handbag.

Later tonight. Strong drinks. I need to wipe out the episode from my memory.