Watch-theft in Stockholm is drastically increasing. Most seem to be targeted and well-planned. Social media may be a research tool for the thieves.
Continue readingWatch-theft in Stockholm
Scippatori: Italy’s Famous Scooter Thieves Rob Savvy Traveler
Doug Nabhan, a lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, shared his experience:
It was 4pm in Naples’ central government plaza…
Two on a scooter.
Violently tackled from behind.
Stolen: my wallet and Rolex.
I am a very seasoned traveler having traveled to 80 countries, many of them dozens of times. I never go out with my big wallet holding my passport and I never travel with a real Rolex.
This time, in Naples, Italy [of all places! —ed.], I had violated both rules.
I had a real Rolex on because I had been in a business meeting in Rome and I had my big wallet because I was leaving to go back to Rome in the morning. I got up from a little pizza place and walked into the public square where all of municipal buildings are. It was broad daylight and there were army vehicles there.
I had walked only about ten yards from the restaurant when of course I heard a motorcycle coming and thought nothing of it. The next thing I knew he literally ran into me and knocked my feet out from under me. I landed on my face and hip. He grabbed my wallet and threw it to the guy on the bike and then wrestled my watch off. It happened in three for four seconds.
I went back to the Army vehicle where the officer would have seen it but for he was facing in the opposite direction. The officer was very kind and called the police who arrived in 30 seconds. The police were furious. They made some calls and had video of the incident in twenty minutes. I got to see it. The police were very impressive and I was convinced that if they found the guy they would beat him to death!
What really makes me mad is that I actually liked Naples and the people. Everyone thought I was crazy to like the place.
For a couple reasons I was lucky. Everything was insured and I did not get injured worse. I also had a solid gold crucifix on and a huge gold ring on.
This happened Easter weekend this year and I am still very jumpy. I’ve given it a lot of thought. The most important thing is simply not to have jewelry on that is expensive. Obviously they have spotters all over the place.
Why not dress some people like tourists with a wallet and a watch and set them up? Seems like an easy way to solve the crime wave.
Scippatori: Italy’s Famous Scooter Thieves
Oh yes, Doug was so lucky. Sometimes, scooter-theft victims die from their brutal attacks.
Doug had responded to my survey on pickpocket incidents. Yes, he did file a police report after his scooter-theft in Naples. [I haven’t compiled results yet, but the great majority of survey respondents did not file police reports.] An experienced traveler, Doug’s incident shook him so badly that even months later here he is visiting Thiefhunters in Paradise to learn about pickpockets and scippatori, Italy’s famous scooter thieves.
When Bob Arno and I first began our thiefhunting, we too, broke our rules, just like Doug did (and in Naples, of all places!). We were walking in Quartieri Spagnoli during siesta; I had a purse, Bob wore a real Rolex. The streets were deserted. We didn’t hear the silent Vespa that rolled up behind us with the motor off until two thieves jumped off and tackled Bob while the third started the engine. I hit one thug over the head with my lethal umbrella (broke the umbrella—not the head!) while Bob bellowed “POLICIA!” Luckily, the trio absconded with nothing. Even now, more than 20 years later, I still flinch and turn at the sound of a scooter.
Scippatori
Scippatori go for handbags, Rolexes, phones, and any valuables they can quickly snatch. Their speed, desperation, and brutality make them especially dangerous. As Doug concluded, the best defense is to avoid looking like an attractive target. Don’t wear jewelry. Don’t carry a purse. Don’t brandish a phone or camera. Don’t have anything grabbable.
Scippatori are currently flourishing in London, where they’re called “moped thieves.” The bandits maneuver their scooters and motorcycles right up onto sidewalks, sometimes in slow motion, snatch phones and handbags, then weave through traffic to make quick getaways.
Doug suggests a sting operation to solve pickpocketing and scooter theft in Naples. Something of the sort was set up by a German newspaper in, I think, the 90s. They had a journalist walk along a street with a handbag chained to himself (or herself). Predictably, the bait was taken! But the backseat scooter-rider-thief who snatched the chained bag was jerked off the fleeing machine, injured—and sued the paper!
In Naples, the thieves are mostly locals and mostly known to police. Pickpocket has long been just one common—almost acceptable—profession in Naples. Police there, when approached by a victim, usually just throw up their hands and blow a puff of air, as if it’s simply another tourist tax. It’s interesting to learn that the police and army officers were responsive to Doug. Maybe, finally, they’re ready to crack down on low-level criminals. Or maybe Doug found a particularly sympathetic officer. Pickpocketing and tourist theft is so embedded in the culture, I wonder if it can ever change.
I know what Doug means about liking Naples. The people are incredibly warm. Even the pickpockets: first they steal from us (a fake wallet) then invite us for coffee! I call it the City of Hugs and Thugs.
Read How to Steal a Rolex.
Read Where to Carry Valuables
Read about the Thieves of Naples
Read Revelations of a Rolex Thief
Read about Watch-Stealing
Read about The City of Hugs and Thugs
Watch the National Geographic documentary Pickpocket King about thiefhunters Bob Arno and Bambi Vincent, filmed in Naples with professional career pickpockets.
Read about Scooter snatch theft in London Now
Death of a Rolex theft victim
We received another long email last Friday from a thief we know in Naples, Italy. Between his flowery prose on the trials and tribulation of the pickpocket profession, and his disclosures of the career aspirations of his young adult children, he informed us of the news that is now everywhere:
Some days ago two thugs tried to snatch the gold Rolex of an American tourist who was off a cruise ship. He died this morning at the hospital. I’m so sorry about this thing.
I’m not sure if our pickpocket friend ever has or would steal a Rolex. As far as we know, he specializes in wallets taken from pockets. Clearly, he does not see himself as a “thug;” no—they are a completely different category of thief.
The American cruise ship passenger died on May 27, never having recovered from injuries sustained when the two hoodlums tried to steal his Rolex on May 18. He’d been strolling with his wife, not far from his ship, and not long on the ground.
The thugs were scippatori, the scooter-riding bandits I’ve written much about. In fact, it was our long-ago surprise encounter with these goon-thieves that began our thiefhunting career.
Sad but inevitable, considering the frequency of these crimes. I’m sad not only for the 66-year-old victim, Oscar Antonio Mendoza, 66, of Puerto Rico, and his family, but also sad for Naples. The city has so much to offer visitors, not least the warmth and liveliness of its populace. Its reputation as crime-infested already has the tourism industry recommending nearby towns instead of Naples.
Unlike Barcelona, where a huge crime wave largely targeting tourists is perpetrated almost exclusively by foreigners from a few specific regions, in Naples, the perpetrators are local mobsters. They are destroying their own city. (One could say that Barcelona also is destroying itself by allowing foreign robbers free reign.)
Our Napolitano pickpocket friend considers his style of robbery above the brute-force-thuggery that eventually killed the American tourist. While holding himself to certain standards, he simultaneously laments his line of work; an odd mixture of pride and shame. He is a religious man. His youngest son, he just told us, “aspires to be a priest—even a pope! It always amazes me that if he attains this vocation, can you imagine? Dad doing the borseggiatore and his son is an angel” Borseggiatore— that’s pickpocket. The irony doesn’t escape our poetic pickpocket friend.
Revelations of a Rolex Thief
“You remember that famous movie, the one shot in Naples?” shouted Officer DC. “In this restaurant they filmed that movie. The whole world knows this section of Napoli.” He gunned his motorcycle and he, with Bob on the back, left me in the dust on the back of Officer M’s bike.
DC and M are Falchi—Falcons—two of Naples’ anti-theft plainclothes motorcycle warriors. The squad was launched in 1995 to fight, among other criminals, scippatori, the pickpockets and purse-snatchers who operate on motor scooters. Patrolling the city on souped-up motorcycles, the Falcons fight speed with speed, power with power, and strength with strength.
Our motorcycle excursion through Quartieri Spagnoli was not exactly a wind-in-the-hair power-ride, but it was bracing, a cop’s-eye view and guided tour of one huge crime scene. Hugging the backs of these brawny, spiky-haired, Levi-clad, cool dudes, we felt immune to danger—there, at ground level, but in a protective bubble.
Bob and DC had stopped to talk with a guy on a Vespa as M and I caught up with them.
“This is AS, one of the best scippatori,” DC said. “He’s an expert with Rolexes.” The cop turned to AS: “These are two journalists from America. They want to interview you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“We’re making a touristic tour,” DC said with a sweeping gesture.
“How many Rolexes do you take?” Bob asked. He had a video camera in his hand but it was pointed at the ground.
“In a week? It depends. Where are they going to show this movie?”
“In America. In Las Vegas. Hey—this man is better than you at stealing!”
AS didn’t react. “Are you filming this? Are you filming me and everything?”
“How many watches do you take in a week?” Bob persisted.
“I take maybe ten Rolexes in one week. Hey, I don’t like this movie you’re making. You’re going to show a bad image of Napoli.”
“This guy makes films about crime in all different cities. Quartieri Spagnoli will be famous in America.”
“AS, how much do you get for one Rolex?”
“$16,000 [in US$]. For, you know, the one with diamonds all around.”
“Now we are friends with Bob. We can visit him in America!” Officer DC started his bike.
“Can I call you on the phone?” Bob asked. “Later, when I find someone to speak Italian for me?”
“No, I don’t want to give you my phone number.”
“Bob is okay, we’ve known him for many years.” Translation: give him your number.
“Okay, you can call me. Here’s my number.”
“Why is it different? Is it new?”
“Ah, I changed the SIM card.” Translation: I’m using a different stolen phone.
Bob and I had wanted a good look at Quartieri Spagnoli ever since our unexpected introduction to a trio of scippatori—from behind. We’d heard from other officers that the police don’t even go into this district except in squads of four or more. It was a war zone, they told us. Neapolitans disown Quartieri Spagnoli as other Italians disown Naples.
As we rode through the narrow lanes, DC told us about his symbiotic relationship with AS.
“AS has a lot of respect for me, that is why he gave you his number. He gives me information about the criminals here. We cooperate.”
AS is an informer—he rats on major drug activity. In exchange, the Falchi close their eyes to AS’s vocation. Unless, that is, a tourist comes complaining to the police about a Rolex theft. In those cases, Officer DC can have a chat with AS, and AS can do some digging, find out who did the swipe, and try to recover the item. Not that it always works….
DC stopped his bike to point out some of the quarter’s highlights.
“Look at all the laundry hanging from the balconies. Typical for this area. And here, this is one of the squares where the mob is very big, the Camorra. They all have their own areas and their own crimes—drugs, prostitution, stealing…”
“Do the grandmothers really sit in the upper windows watching for Rolexes?” I asked. It sounded like a myth, but I’d heard many times that theft here was a family affair.
Someone whistled—the piercing, two-finger type.
“That means police,” DC said. “They’re warning their friends that we’re here. Yes, the women sit on their balconies and when they see something to steal they call their sons or grandsons to come by on their scooters. It’s true.” He twisted around to look at Bob. “You must be careful with your video camera. These are gangs of thieves we’re passing and they’re looking at it. They can steal it.”
We paused in front of the funicular, the very one that inspired the classic Neapolitan song “Funiculi, Funicula.”
“Here in Piazza Montesanto there are many pickpockets, near the underground station. They steal many wallets in this area. And the funiculare is here. We have four video cameras watching this Piazza. There’s a lot of drug dealing here, too.”
Most tourists never venture into these areas of Naples’ old town and, but for the threat of theft, it’s a shame. Although we have no excuse to describe them in this book about criminals, most Napolitanos are warm and welcoming toward visitors; Bob and I adore their casual, urbane tradition. With its lively outdoor culture and its heart on its sleeve, Quartieri Spagnoli is the heart and soul of the place I call the city of hugs and thugs.
Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Five: Rip Offs: Introducing…The Opportunist
Also read How to Steal a Rolex
Watch-stealing
Wristwatches are a classic subject of seizure. The problem is not widespread, but concentrated largely in specific locales. Naples, Italy, is only one of them.
José, a day visitor there, stopped on Via Toledo to photograph a colorful produce stand. As he walked away with his wife, his Rolex was snatched from his wrist. He turned in time to see a teenage boy running up into the narrow alleys of Quartieri Spagnoli, bystanders watching with no apparent concern.
A cruise ship captain had his Rolex ripped off from the perceived safety of a taxi stopped in traffic, as he rested his arm on the open window. And a grocer we met, a Napolitano, said the motorcycle bandits, scippatori, had tried to grab his Rolex four times, and finally succeeded. He had a new one now, but showed us the cheap watch he switched to before leaving his store every day with the Rolex in his pocket.
In Caracas, 17 members of an organized tour paused in a square to view a statue of Bolivar. While the tour guide lectured, a pair of men in business suits jumped a Japanese couple who stood at the back of the group. They were wrestled to the ground, their Rolexes pried off their wrists, and the well-dressed thieves on their escape before anyone could spring into action.
After watching my husband, Bob Arno, demonstrate watch steals in his show, people come up to us with wrists outstretched. “But they couldn’t get this one, could they? It’s even hard for me to unclasp.”
Watch-stealing
Bob’s theatrical techniques are totally unlike the street thieves’ methods. Bob’s stage steals are designed to climax with the surprise return of an intact watch. The thief, on the other hand, cares not if the victim notices or if the watch breaks. In the street, a watch thief gets his quick fingers under the face of the watch and pulls with a twist, snapping the tiny pins that connect the watch to its strap.
The readily recognizable Rolex is a universal symbol of wealth. Its instant ID factor makes it not only a conspicuous target, but highly desirable on the second-hand market. Even a fraction of its “hot” price brings big bucks to the thief and the fence.
Outside of Naples, in South Africa, Brazil, and England for example, seizure of Rolex watches is big business often perpetrated by Nigerian gangs, who send shipments of these status symbols to eager dealers in the Middle East. Who would guess that watch-snatching was so organized, so global?
Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Five: Rip-Offs: Introducing…the Opportunist
Read How to Steal a Rolex
How to steal a Rolex off a driver’s wrist
When we interviewed Luciano in Naples, Italy, our translator, a Napolitano, explained how Rolexes are stolen off the wrists of drivers in the summer.
The team targets expensive cars and scopes out the drivers’ watches from the vantage point of a motorcycle. It’s hot. The windows are up and the air-conditioner is on. Traffic is heavy, as always in Naples, and there are no such things as lanes. Cars squeeze into whatever interstices exist.
There’s a Mercedes that fits the bill. A scooter slips alongside it; the scooter driver folds down the Mercedes’ side mirror in order to pass, and winds away through the gridlock. The Mercedes driver opens her window and readjusts the side mirror with her left hand. That’s the moment another scooter zooms up, rips the Rolex or Cartier or Piaget right off the extended wrist, follows the first scooter between stagnant cars, and disappears into an alley.
Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Three: Getting There—With all your Marbles
Scooter-riding bandits
Stung by a Wasp: Scooter-Riding Bandits
Buzz Bob and Bambi
I didn’t think it could happen to me.
There was no forewarning. One moment Bambi and I were walking down a narrow, cobblestone alley in Naples’ Centro Storico, having just looked back at an empty street. The next moment I was grabbed from behind, like a Heimlich maneuver—except I wasn’t choking on chicken. I was being mugged and there were three of them.
There was nothing slick about it; they were just fast and singularly focused on my 30-year-old Rolex. Without finesse, it was merely a crude attempt to break the metal strap. What these amateurs didn’t know was that they had selected a mark who had himself lifted hundreds of thousands of watches in his career as an honest crook.
Until now, I had never been on the receiving end of my game, even though I’d strolled often through ultimate pocket-picking grounds in Cartegena, the souks in Cairo, and La Rambla in Barcelona. I’d been pushed and shoved using public transportation like the Star Ferry in Hong Kong and rush-hour subways in Tokyo, London, and New York; yet I’d never been a victim.
Finally my luck turned—I’m not sure for the good or bad—during a visit to Naples, Italy. Though I hadn’t been there in some fifteen years, I knew full well about its slick pickpockets, and particularly about the infamous scippatori. This latter is a unique style of rip-off which involves speeding scooters and short Italians with long arms. Little did I know that I would finally become a statistic in what must be one of the world’s highest concentrations of muggings and pickpocketings in an area of less than a square mile: Quartieri Spagnoli, a district even the police avoid.
Scippatori are marauding teams of pirates on motor scooters. The scooter of choice is the Vespa, a nimble machine with a plaintive buzz which, when carrying a pair of highway bandits, delivers a surprising sting. Scippatori ply their vicious bag snatching chicanery on unsuspecting tourists in Italy, and in Naples particularly. Handbags and gold chains are plucked as easily as ripe oranges by backseat riders in daring dash-and-grab capers.
It was therefore with extreme caution that Bambi and I walked these streets, popular with tourists primarily as a gateway city. It’s the starting point for ferry trips to Capri, bus tours to Pompeii, and drives along the spectacular Amalfi-Sorrento Coast. Let me emphasize starting point. Even Naples’ car rental companies urge tourists to drive directly out of town.
Though it hardly matches the beauty or historical magnitude of Rome, Venice, or Florence, Bambi wanted to photograph the colorful Quartieri Spagnoli. Its old section, the Centro Storico, has a seedy, rustic, old-world fascination, with its dismal balconied apartments stacked on minuscule dreary shops. As we walked, I reminded my wife that this was the birthplace of pickpocketing, and I scrutinized every scooter that buzzed by, making sure we were out of reach.
It was mid-afternoon, siesta time, as Bambi and I strolled the deserted lanes. Little light filtered down through the seven or eight stories of laundry hanging above the narrow alleys. Almost all the shops were shut, their steel shutters rolled down and padlocked, and it was quiet except for the snarl of traffic on Via Toledo, the perimeter street. A lone shellfish monger remained, amid shallow dishes of live cockles, clams, snails, and cigalo glittering in water. Though we were practically alone in the area, we frequently glanced behind us.
Still, they caught us completely off-guard. With silence their foil, they rolled down a hill: three young thugs on a Vespa scooter, its engine off. One guy remained on the scooter, ready to bolt; another held me with my arms pinned to my sides, and the third tried to tear the watch off my wrist. It was sudden, quick, and silent. No shouts or vulgar threats.
It‘s a joke, I thought that first crucial instant, expecting a friend or fan to say “Gottcha!” I’m quite often grabbed by people who’ve seen me perform; they like to make me faux-victim as a sort of role-reversing prank. Although this vice-grip felt deadly serious, my thought process, instant and automatic, cost me several seconds. I didn’t fight back with a sharp elbow or kick. And because my reflexes never got into gear, I didn’t have a chance to coil my muscles into a protective stance.
Fortunately, pickpockets are generally petty criminals who can easily be scared off. They prefer stealth, diversion, and speed to violence as their modus operandi. Bambi reacted a moment before I did, bravely smashing my captor on the head with her umbrella. Other than breaking the umbrella, this had no effect at all.
As soon as my adrenaline kicked in, I yelled at the top of my voice “Polizia, polizia.” Years of stage speaking enabled me to project my voice throughout the neighborhood. Instant reaction! They scrambled away as fast as they had appeared.
We walked away, lucky but shaken. My steel watchband didn’t give despite considerable force applied in attempting to snap its pin. All I had lost was my own track record. I could no longer claim that pickpockets had never tried to steal from me.
Bambi still tenses at the buzz of a motorcycle behind her—not a bad legacy, perhaps. And both of us now strip down to skin and cloth when visiting this most colorful district. The proof of my own stupidity, namely, wearing a Rolex in Naples, was a scratched up wrist. I should have known better.
First rule for avoiding pickpockets: don’t attract them. Don’t signal you’re worth their while. Second rule: acknowledge that it can happen to anyone. Whether you’re strong, confident, aware, or careful, you are not immune. Even a veteran pickpocket can become a victim.
Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Two (part-e): Research Before You Go
How to steal a Rolex, Part 5 of 5
Naples, Italy— After lunch, Mario must leave us and we four are left to stumble through the dangerous quarter accompanied only by pidgin. Officer DC leads us deep into mafia headquarters, where families fight families and the Camorra rules. He points out the most life-threatening piazzas and says the gangs have their own areas and specialties: drugs, prostitution, stealing, counterfeiting.
Bob pauses to film a picaresque street; one of many that seem straight out of a black and white movie.
“Bob—” DC starts.
“Oh—I’ll put it away,” Bob apologizes.
“No. Bob.” DC pulls up his shirt and reveals his police belt and guns. “With me, you do anything. You are safe!”
Since our near-mugging here in 1994, we’ve been fascinated by this designated danger zone. Our motorcycle tour three years ago only increased the allure. Yet, we’ve ventured only a few blocks in at most, each time getting the shivers as spotters’ whistles echo off the high walls and Vespa-mounted muggers circle us like sharks around a bleeding seal. We’ve tried it carrying nothing, no jewelry, watches, cameras, or bags, only to chicken out with memories of three men on a silent scooter grabbing us from behind, and a hundred first-person reports of watch- and bag-thefts.
Today we’re not scared. We swing our arms carelessly. Walk without looking behind us. Leisurely pause to examine fresh produce, a wall plaque, fanciful architecture.
We’re going to see the biggest Rolex thief, DC tells us, and the number one drug dealer. It isn’t clear if this is one person or two, but it doesn’t matter. We turn down a street of blinding sun light and deep shadow, narrow, like an alley, like all the streets in this Italian barrio. It would look like a slum if it weren’t so full of Hollywood character. The female coterie in plastic chairs, the don seated suitably apart flanked by a pair of young men and a pair of mean dogs. The only thing wrong with the picture? AS seems too young to rule a family. I can easier picture him dancing in a gay bar, with his tight jeans and red t-shirt stretched over buff biceps. But what do I know about mafiawear? What I do know is that this is one tough thug, gracious in polite company, but very likely soon off to the clink like his homeboys.
This is part 5 of 5. — Part 1
How to steal a Rolex, Part 4 of 5
Naples, Italy—Mario is not only intelligently fluent in English and Italian–he is interested in the conversation. He excavates the essence when Officer DC expounds on the legality of the pacco biz. Apparently, the victim has to “denounce,” or make a complaint against, the seller, but the victim can be denounced, too, for buying from a thief. And in the end, the judge will toss it out because he has many bigger crimes to deal with. But wait—that’s another story.
I mention that we had seen Luciano and his brother Angelo working the trams in the morning. DC sort of snorts. Simple pickpockets. Too small fish for him to be concerned with.
No wonder the thieves are thick in Naples.
We are lucky that DC is at our disposal today. He has just returned from a three-month course in Rome where he qualified as a machine gun instructor. He and his girlfriend were nearby when we called his cell phone. They hurried over to meet us. On a small player, we showed him some of last year’s video of local thieves, including Nuncio, the white-haired “businessman” from whom Bob lifted a tie.
“White hair means experience,” DC said.
Strange then, that he didn’t recognize this experienced Napolitano pickpocket.
DC will be 33 in October. He and his girlfriend plan to go to Las Vegas then to get married. First, he laughs, he will study English. Like most Napolitanos, they know little.
“You still haven’t told me how they steal the watch off your right wrist when you’re driving,” DC says.
Since he’d dropped it, I hadn’t realized that he actually had an answer.
“When you put your left hand out to fix the mirror, they burn it with a cigarette,” he said.
This is part 4 of 5. — Part 5 — Part 1
How to steal a Rolex, Part 3 of 5
Naples, Italy— For most of this day, we’ve been accompanied by Mario, a friend and fabulous translator. Born in Italy, educated in Australia, now settled in Las Vegas, Mario grew up speaking textbook Italian at home while secretly imitating his parents’ Napolitano dialect, which he wasn’t allowed to use.
“No way!” Mario had said earlier, as Officer DC explained why the pacco men are allowed to continue their bait-and-switch scam year after year. They were now offering Bob a cell phone as we traversed their territory, not noticing our plainclothes police pal. When they recognized DC, they flocked around him like awestruck fans. DC eventually pushed through the gangster gauntlet, complaining that we’d never get to lunch if we stopped to talk with every crook. [More on bait-and-switch, eventually.]
We turn into the Quartieri Spagnoli telling Mario how it’s not just your ordinary neighborhood. We pass the spot where Bob had been pinned from behind so long ago, a two-handed Rolex-robbery attempted on his old model by three of AS’s butterfingered predecessors. DC selects an empty trattoria. He orders “a mixture” for all of us, and a feast arrives, plate by small plate. Crisp-fried sardines, miniature arugula, zucchini flowers, and the tenderest calamari we’ve ever eaten.
“Watch your bag,” DC cautions Bob, who sits closest to the open door. DC, of course, has his back to the wall. “Do you know how they steal a watch when you’re driving a car?
“Yes,” I say. “When you’re stuck in traffic, they squeeze between cars on their scooters and fold your side mirror to get by. You reach out to fix the mirror and the next scooter-rider grabs it.”
DC seems disappointed that I know.
“How would they do it if you wear your watch on your right wrist?”
I say I don’t know.
“They make you shake hands, for some reason,” Bob suggests. DC doesn’t say.
This is part 3 of 5. Part 4 Part 1