New Orleans and a Question of Trust

“Give me your phone,” ordered a stranger on my right.

I looked up from the windowsill where I sat perched, mesmerized by the killer pork belly po’ boy in my hands.

“Give me your phone,” the woman repeated. “The light’s really nice, and you look good in this window.”

The po’ boys in question.

I wasn’t sure I believed her intentions, but I did suddenly recognize her: a few minutes earlier she’d been standing next to me at the bar, ordering drinks to go (because, New Orleans). She had looked friendly enough — but that was when she was inside.

Now she and her husband were outside, no walls to contain them — surrounded by nothing but the open roads of the French Quarter that were looking ripe for a good dash with a stranger’s iPhone.

*

I weighed my options.

The documentarian side of me thought, “Golly you’re right, the lighting is splendid and the framing superb. Plus this is his & my first trip together and we have so few photos that aren’t selfies. Bless your heart for offering to record this slice of life for a stranger!”

The other side of me, who has actually encountered real humans and doesn’t live in Snow White’s enchanted forest surrounded by talking animals: “…you’re kidding, right.”

Naive Me: “She looks nice though? And her husband’s standing right there?”

Not-Buying-It Me: “Why do you watch so many episodes of SVU if you can’t spot an accomplice? She’d clearly throw it to him and he’d book it.”

Wants-to-Believe Me: “But they have drinks in their hands? How far could they get with open containers AND a phone?”

Weary-World-Traveler Me: “Uhhhh they’d clearly toss the $5 drinks, that’s called an opportunity cost, dummy. Or at least I think it is, I dunno, there’s a reason we dropped out of econ first semester of college.”

This went on for a while.

Meanwhile the woman is looking at me, her husband’s looking at his beer, and my man’s looking at his po’ boy. So to get the whole situation over with I throw caution to the wind and say,

“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks!”

I could hear the groans of all Ghosts of Travelers Scammed Past. “What is wrong. with. you.”

*

She snapped a few angles before promptly returning my phone. No need to worry, in the end. In each photo, our body language is in alliance with our forced smiles: we were ready to jump out the window at the slightest sudden movement from either of the pair. I’m glad we have the photos but I don’t love them, and I’m not sure it was worth the potential loss of my (quite new) phone.

In hindsight, I still don’t know what made me say Yes. I could have very easily said no thank you, and I’m sure this woman would’ve understood the caution. My gut was screaming Don’t Risk It; had I been a betting woman watching this unfold on Candid Camera, no doubt I’d’ve placed money on “that phone ’bout to grow legs”.

This woman was just attempting a nice gesture to a couple day-drinking on holiday — but we all know in reality, you can’t be too careful. We’ve all heard more than our fair share of the scams, the bamboozles, the million and one ways to lose your valuables. And the longer you’ve been out there, the more stories you hear.

But the longer you’ve been on the road, the more you also want to believe in people. To be able to trust that deep down, that stranger on the street is someone good. That they usually try to do the right thing, too.

So maybe I said yes because, once in a while, I want the universe to tear down my guard and rationality and common sense and prove it all wrong.

I may not love the photo, but I’ll always remember the lesson behind it.

Would you give a stranger your phone if they approached you first?