I wasn't in Miami 2 hours and I was robbed

We went to Miami to get work at the greyhound track there. We had friends in the business and once we located the track we had to kill a couple of hours before it was time for them to show up. We parked at an Ames store across the street from the track. We went inside just to kill some time.

When we came out of the store the hatchback on the car had been popped! The car was full of stuff because we had been driving back and forth from WV for the previous month. My heart fell to my stomach. The first thing I thought of was my dog, Chuckles. The second thing was the $1500 we had left in the glove compartment.

We ran to the car. Of course no one was anywhere in sight. There was hardly anything missing. Only one suitcase and a couple of bags of souveniers. Boy were we lucky. I credit Chuckles with saving our stuff. I am sure that she probably went ape shit nuts when strangers tried to get into the car!

There was nothing of value in the suitcase because we had been using another one to live out of. The souveniers were meaningless as well. I got some sense of satisfaction that the thieves risked getting caught for less than $100 worth of junk.

I also appreciated my dog so much more. She saved the day - and our $1500! We should have left Miami then and there. Things only went downhill from their. The people were rude and mean. Everywhere you went there were armed guards - even the local Winn Dixie had a security guard at every register.

I went into a Kentucky Fried Chicken one day the the woman was so obnoxious that I would have been happy to just leave with no chicken. After a huge wait we did get our bird though. We rented a studio apartment (complete with murphy bed - which I thought was pretty cool) for $750 + utilities. An unheard of amount for rent for a girl from West Virginia. We left 2 weeks later after I had a miscarriage and couldn't get medical help. It was just too traumatic and I couldn't deal with Miami anymore.

I remember the world was cheering because Nelson Mandela was making his first appearance in America after being released from prison but I couldn't get a doctor to take care of me. So we left. We started over in West Palm Beach. Life was good and nothing like Miami had been.