Pretty sure a couple of phone snatchers tried to get me this morning
I walk to work through Exeter city centre pretty early in the morning. Before the sun rises, these days.
And there's this one offshoot from the high street that's usually dead at that time. This morning, though, two figures approached, one behind the other.
I moved to the side to let them past. They moved to the same side.
I switched. They switched.
The first person caught up with me; an older woman, reeking of alcohol and ravaged by drugs. She held out a scrap of paper with a phone number on it.
"Please," she said, "you can keep hold of your phone, but can you call my sister?"
Call me a cynic. Call me heartless. I truly don't care. Right there on the spot, I thought of a dozen scenarios far more likely than her story. And that other figure was getting closer.
"No," I said, and I kept on walking.
The woman yelped. I think it was supposed to sound like a cry. At which point, the second figure jogged up. A younger woman, who immediately started consoling the first, who was blubbing about needing to call her sister.
The pair of them yelled something back to me, but that doesn't work on me. I am a cynic. I am heartless. And I stone-cold guarantee, they were going to snatch my phone the second I unlocked it.