Not such a wonderful life!

It hasn't been the best of weeks for Gemma as her Good Samaritan efforts backfired...

Wandering through what is known as the ‘Pink City’ taking in the stunning red brick buildings, sipping mulled wine at Christmas markets, ice skating and above all catching up with friends. When I finally decided to take time off work and visit my friend on her Erasmus in Toulouse, this is what I imagined. Last year, we made the commute to Limerick together every week. During the six-hour weekly round trip, neither of us ever shut our mouths. Fast forward to now, we are both living in different countries and haven’t spoken in months. For these reasons I was ecstatic to be going to see her.

Unfortunately, I never made it to Toulouse. I made it to Gare du Midi station to get to my bus to the airport, where I stupidly decided to help a man who subsequently stole my passport. Not having my passport in the weeks coming up to Christmas is bad, but I find it even more unfortunate that we live in a world where you can’t answer somebody asking for help.

It’s only now that I am coming around to the realisation that it was actually stolen. I was supposed to fly out on Friday morning. I worked my Thursday night shift in the bar and went straight to the bus station afterwards. Considering I had never been there before, I wanted to leave loads of time. Yes I was exhausted but, from a very young age it was always drilled into us to check our passports several times before, during and after visits to the airport. For this reason, I know I had my passport when I left the house.

I arrived at the station at around 1.50am. My work colleagues warned me about being here at night, it’s not safe at all. I won’t lie, I did feel a little scared and the rats did not help this feeling. I thought about capturing one of them to bring to the Arva show, I could win all around me with the size of them. The bus was supposed to come every 20 minutes, but there was no sign of it. A man came up and asked if I could show him the timetable on my phone. His English wasn’t native but I couldn’t place where he was from. I could understand him very well though and he was quite chatty. Of course, it’s only now that I realise why.

So me being me, I was only too happy to help. I opened my bag and took out my phone. I didn’t have it in my hand because I forgot to charge it at work, so by putting it in my bag I was not tempted to randomly scroll through social media and waste my battery. It took me ages to find the updated timetable, but when I eventually did it told me the bus wasn’t coming for another hour. The guy thanked me and said that he was going to wait inside the station. He went on his way.

About 15 minutes passed, I was freezing. I wanted to stay outside though just in case the bus did come. I started walking up and down to try and keep myself warm. Bad plan, no sooner had I taken a few steps away from the stop than a man started asking me what was wrong, are you lost, let me help you, please let me help you. Slurred voice, eyes looking everywhere but at me kind of situation. I decided the station would be the best option. I walked over and tried to enter. It was locked. My brain came back to life. The guy I helped earlier never returned to the bus stop when he too realised it was locked. I checked my bag, my purse was there but my passport was gone.

The panic that came over me was unbelievable. I cannot explain how scared I felt, how stupid I felt for not noticing and how annoyed I was at myself and vowing to never help anybody again. I went home and turned my room upside-down looking for the passport, but I knew I had it when I left. I tried to sleep, but all I could think of was that this person had about five hours with my passport before I could report it as missing to the police. I started researching what somebody can do with a stolen passport. Let’s just say it didn’t make for relaxing night time reading.

They say our experiences shape us and we learn from them. I could empathise with this man who asked me for help. We were both in the situation of standing in the freezing cold wondering where the bus was. I helped him without hesitation. I can hear my dad’s voice in my mind so clearly now, when things like this happen he always says ‘you know what to do the next time'. It’s his way of saying we learn from our mistakes.

How upsetting to think, the moral of this story is not to help somebody in future. Let's hope I can get my replacement passport in time to get home for Christmas.

* Gemma Good is from Killeshandra and a third year journalism student in University of Limerick

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