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'Twas the season to be robbed, for me, anyway. Not that I wasn't merry, mind you. In fact, I was merry even after my bag was stolen from under my feet during what was, until I tried to pay the bill, a most pleasant tapas affair at Fiesta in the Cape Quarter in Greenpoint.

It's been several seasons since my last robbery and, statistically, I?m sure it was a long time coming.

I was merry in that truly South African way when one realises, yes, I have been relieved of my cash, cards, cell phone and all forms of identification, but OMG it could have been so much worse! No one even pointed a weapon at me. There is so much to be thankful for!

Police action isn't on the list, however, but I am still hoping to hear from them, or maybe from the Greenpoint CID who apparently have the entire incident on video. I am told that the culprits casually picked up my bag from under the chair I was sitting on, getting to grips with my cocktail ? my first for the day, in case you're wondering ? and departed in a white getaway vehicle.

Of what use this is I'm not quite sure. The manager of the establishment sounded very proud that the admittedly less-than-momentous crime was captured on camera, but seemed a little taken aback when I enquired how this would help.

I understand that much of the Cape Town CBD is under digital surveillance, but if no one is watching it until after the event I'm not sure it's worth the tape it's recorded on.

Be that as it may, I had to order another daiquiri to help me hold on to my temper while I phoned the bank and cell phone company to stop the accounts. MTN Banking's phone line was "down for maintenance" ? an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

How does a cellular network stay operational if it can't even keep its own phones up and running during peak season? Perhaps the operators had simply had enough of belligerent victims of card and phone theft abusing them 24/7.

I know I would put my phone on to voicemail if I had to listen to hysterical holiday drunks spewing invective at me after being stupid enough to store their possessions under a chair in an outside restaurant. And that?s just the locals.

The Americans probably threaten legal action and the Germans a hostile takeover of the country. Anyway, that'll teach me to accept a credit card from a phone company. I have always said these people should concentrate on the thing they're supposed to be experts at and not try to branch out into banking and health sectors.

By the time I'd worked my way through a colonial G 'n' T I was starting to enjoy myself.

Once I was sure my accounts were stopped and my hardish-earned cash wasn't being channelled into a charismatic church by televangelists in Nigeria, I even started seeing the benefits of being robbed.

In fact, the devilish thieves had actually saved me money! I now wouldn't be able to squander it during the remainder of my leave (before I got new bank cards) and, aside from the few low denomination notes in my back pocket, I would have to stop eating and drinking for a few days, too.

My God, these people had actually done me a service! Since my new year's resolutions had failed miserably before I'd even decided on what they were to be (even though it was already the 3rd of the month), I was wondering how I was going to enforce them. Now it was done for me.

Earlier that day my credit card had been swallowed by an ATM and, as I was putting the new one into my purse, the wind snatched it from my grubby little paws and took it on a merry dance through the parking lot. If I had known the fate that was to befall it at lunch I'd have left it there instead of amusing passers-by with my attempts to catch it in the south-easter.

And as for the cell phone ? just hours before the Great Robbery (and great escape too) I had been cursing the thing and its incessant bleeping signalling messages to "have a good 2008", "make the most of the year ahead" and "dance like no one's watching" etc and so on. Now the thing had painlessly been removed from my possession and I wouldn?t have to threaten it with disconnection and/or disembowelment any longer.

I am thinking of not replacing it with and not upgrading it to the latest model of endless communication and never-to-be-used additional features.

Later that evening I even started feeling resentful that I hadn't been robbed or even been present at a restaurant robbery in at least five years. I mean, everyone else has.

Granted, I am not a label-brandishing fashionista, but what was wrong with my bag that no one wanted to steal it sooner?

My blue, canvas, non-Prada, non-Gucci little number wasn't that bad. It still had all the important things on the inside, for heaven's sake! It was no doubt feeling rejected after all this time and. even though it is probably lying in a ditch somewhere after being given a good going-over and tossed out the window, I'm sure it was worth the fling.

Later still, I realised it was all a sign (from above or below, it was hard to say). Yes, the ATM, the wind, the robbery, it was clear that someone was trying to tell me something. A sign from Hermes, the god of money, perhaps, that I wasn't spending enough or fast enough and now he was punishing me and taking it all away.

I resolved to buy myself a motorbike and a new lounge suite just as soon as the new plastic arrives. Not for me, obviously, but to appease the gods. And Tito Mboweni.

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