I was distracted by my mom’s double pneumonia on top of the brain aneurysm bleed. Either that or having to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas and the afternoons since up at El Camino at her bedside. I imagine most visitors are similarly distracted. So I left my purse in the single bathroom by the elevators.

Pretty dumb. By the time I realized, someone had placed it behind a post. Wow, good samaritan, I thought, and because I was exhausted, didn’t find out till the next day that you had gone through my wallet. Left my credit cards and some loose change. I guess you knew I was coming right back, and decided not to take more. Of course, you know what I look like, my license, of course. Were you the guy coming out as I was going in afterward? The one I asked if there was a purse in there? The one who spent more than half an hour making up the other bed in my mom’s room yesterday?

You’ll probably have a pretty happy new year, maybe buying some extra lotto tickets. Or maybe one of those big-screen tvs, if you add up all the other stuff you take. Do you have a mom? I hope she never has to spend Christmas hooked up to a bunch of machines. Because no one should have to do that.