Snatched!

The first purse I featured in this series belongs to a friend who got back in touch with me a few days ago with a great story. On Labor Day 2012 she was in a yoga class and had left her purse in the car. When she came out all zen and relaxed, she found that someone had smashed in her car window and stolen her purse. A week later, a woman drove through my friend's bank and presented the stolen driver's license, asking for her bank balances. The only problem is that the poser was younger than my friend is, and the teller noticed that. They asked for more ID and the woman drove off. 

Fast forward 13 months. My friend got a call from the police saying that they'd found her purse. Apparently the thieves pilfered what they wanted out of the handbag and tossed it over a fence that was less than a quarter mile from where it was stolen. A few days ago an old woman hired someone to trim her bushes and the gardener found the purse. 

When my friend was reunited with her purse she stuck her hand inside to find "wet mush." She dumped it out on the sidewalk (which is when this photo was taken.) Yes, it spent 13 months in the belly of some bushes, but the "mud" in the photo is mostly a decomposed Guatemalan pouch that held her makeup.