Today I was in the train going from Zurich to Lausanne and I fell asleep holding my purse with a death grip (New Orleans in me), but next to me in the aisle seat I had my lunch bag (only my bento and my phone charger).

I woke up in between Fribourg and Lausanne to someone slamming down in the seat next to me where my bento should have been and two other guys in the aisle. I said to him “you’re sitting on my bag” and he said “no, I put it across from you.” This train was empty, he had no reason to sit next to me when he could sit across from me. He had tried to do a walk by with my lunch bag and the lady across the aisle yelled, at which point he threw the bag across and sat next to me as if he “wanted to sit there” and that is when I woke up. He had two friends about two meters away and then he walked off to join them within five seconds of slamming down.

I go to the conductor to tell them that there are a band of pickpockets in this train- he doesn’t speak French (!!!!!!!!! another story for another thread) and told me to go to the people in the train station because at this point we were in Lausanne.

I get off the train and go to the gendarmerie in the train station. I explain my story, say I just want to give a heads-up so if someone comes in with a story from the same train, told them what train it was on and when, and the cop cut me off and asked me where the dudes were from. So I said they were North African kids. At which point I got twenty minutes of how Islam doesn’t respect women or human rights and that cultures are so different and how things have gotten worse lately with the Algerians and the Moroccans but actually the Tunisians are ok because they haven’t learned how to steal yet but a lot of times people beat their wives, especially Yugos and Kosovar men don’t let their wives leave the house and in Muslim cultures men need to be in charge so they steal and Turks are a little weird but ok…I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say and couldn’t get a word in edgewise anyway. That’ll learn me to go talk to cops. I mean, he was extremely friendly and nice and professional, except for the words coming out of his mouth.

How do y’all talk back to stuff like that?

So yeah, anyway, hold on to your bags in those intercity trains.