Purse Panic

Last weekend I went by train to a conference in New York City and was forced to call on that sense of what I'll call willed calm. “We have a sold-out train, people!” the conductor bellowed. “Keep your belongings in your own area!” Obediently I stowed my suitcase overhead, my purse under my seat and my backpack under the seat in front of me.And sure enough at the very next stop there was someone at my elbow. “Do you mind if I sit here?” asked this boy in a baseball cap. "Not at all," I said back.We exchanged not a word more but traveled in companionable silence, he constantly probing the flat little belly of his iPhone like some old-time family doc on a house call.So calm did I in fact feel that I somehow came to assume our two fates were actually linked and we would both be exiting the train together. We were docked at Penn Station for a full 90 seconds before I blurted “You’re not going to New York?!”“Nope. D.C.”I shot out of my seat, flung my backpack on, clambered over him, grabbed my suitcase down and was carried by the mass of humanity all the way to the top of the two-story escalator before realizing, uh oh—my purse was still under my seat.I hurried over to an Amtrak official who said, “Go to Customer Service.” Customer service said “Get back downstairs before it leaves again! RUN!”I ran all right. The train was there still, but which car of the 15 cars had been mine? I knew it was near an ‘Up’ escalator but now all the escalators were ‘Down’ ones, all bearing fresh masses of people eager to board. Where was my seatmate? I ran past twelve 85-foot-long cars, but with the lights so bright in the station I couldn’t see really inside them.I ran again in the opposite direction, still frantically looking. “My purse!” was all I could think—before remembering: my purse didn’t have my money or my credit cards, which were hidden inside my ingeniously fashioned belt.What it held instead was my food: carrots and almonds, cereal, fruit and powdered milk. I ‘e been doing Weight Watchers Points Plus© Program since late November and I was darned if I was going to go three days without my fresh healthful food. Plus the purse itself was pretty nice.I took a deep breath and slowed to a walk. I went up to one window in every single car, cupped my hands around my face and peered in, until, finally, finally, finally I saw the boy. He looked up when I rapped on the glass. With a tragic face straight out of Ancient Greek theatre I pointed downward. He instantly swooped up the purse, ran to the rail-car’s door and with a big smile tossed me the bag just as the train began pulling from the station—leaving me with less faith in my own mental acuity, yes, but a much-increased faith in those angels of travel journeying right beside us.