THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : DATELINE: Albertville

“I have spent about two-thirds of my life in New York and never had a car stolen, a pocket picked or a house broken into. I have been to France three times and twice have been the victim of thefts.

“A five-day vacation in Paris after the 1984 Sarajevo Games took an expensive turn when my plane ticket was stolen. A visit to Pan Am remedied that with a minimum of stress, although I was out the cost of the original ticket.

“Then the other day, my wallet was stolen, and with it my cash, credit cards, driver’s license and newspaper ID card.

“Lunch with a fellow journalist in Meribel was a pleasant break from work, and we decided afterward to stroll down the main street to buy postcards and souvenirs. We paid for lunch--I remember counting out the francs and returning my wallet to my purse--and walked about a block. I remember thinking how many people were on the narrow little street and how many more seemed jammed into the souvenir shop as I picked out a T-shirt, some postcards and a pin. I reached for my shoulder bag and felt it was already open. I had a sickening feeling that something was wrong. The wallet was gone.

“We ran back to the restaurant, but the wallet wasn’t there. In the street, we found a gendarme, a policeman. I explained my plight in French, and he led me to the local police station, the gendarmerie.

“There, insult was added to injury. My French is good enough to have done translation work, but because I didn’t have the correct accent--mine is the slightly more nasal Quebec French instead of the pure European--they often pretended not to understand what I said. Their favorite phrase was ‘C’est impossible,’ or ‘It’s impossible.’ When I told them my local address, they said it didn’t exist.

“It took two hours to fill out a five-paragraph police report. They needed to know my father’s name, my mother’s maiden name, where I was born and my marital status, information that was totally irrelevant. When it was completed, the officer in charge said, ‘Say by-by to your wallet.’ I was only too happy to say by-by to the gendarmerie.

“Four days later, a gendarme called, saying my papers had been found. A return visit to the gendarmerie was no more pleasant than the first.

“The police chief barked at me and obviously didn’t believe me when I told him I’d never been in the hotel where my wallet was found. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were staying at the Hotel La Chaudanne?’

“I assured him I wasn’t staying there. ‘Well, your wallet was found in the bathroom there,’ he said. ‘You are sure you are not staying there?’

“I told him I’d never even been to that hotel, which is down the street from where my wallet had been stolen. His glare told me he didn’t believe me.

“My wallet was returned, soggy, but with my credit cards--since canceled--driver’s license and library card intact. Also tucked away was one sodden dollar bill. Presumably, enough to make a phone call. But somewhere in France is the person who ripped me off and caused all this trouble. May he be arrested by the same gendarmes who dealt with me.”

Amen.