Last one
A street in Havana, Cuba. Me and three friends, walking along quite leisurely on the pavement. One friend is holding her shoulder bag by the straps in her hand instead of, er, over her shoulder. I'm walking at the back of the group, my bag friend at the front. La la, walking along, all's fine.

A quite elderly man is walking very slowly towards us on the same pavement. La dee da, lovely day.

The elderly man veeeerrryyy slowly begins to bend over as he shuffles forwards. Maybe he has cramp. Laa, shiny sun, lovely.

Elderly man is starting to bend his knees as he walks. Crikey, maybe he's having some kind of seizure. I don't know the spanish for 'defribullator', so on with the laalaa doodaa, sunshine good.

Elderly man is now shuffling along, bent over, bent knees, and is slowly putting his arm out. Now that's plain odd, I think, we should just move round him. The other's will see, la dee da, never mind, ooh look, nice retro sign over there.

Elderly man shuffles forwards a little further and reaches for my friend's bag straps.

Huh?

My friend, busy until now herself with sunshine, retro signs and the lovely day, looks down and sees and elderly man shuffling and holding her bag straps. Confused, she pulls her bag away. He tugs back, still shuffling along. She pulls a bit harder. He tugs again.

He's still shuffling along, holding the bag straps, only in the opposite direction from us now. My friend, still very confused about the speed, or lack of, that this is happening, pulls once more and frees her bag from his grip.

The elderly man scowls, shuffles along at the same excruciatingly slow speed, and begins to unfold himself once more.

My friend later described the 'attack' as having a vague nightmarish quality, a creepy slowness of time etc..

The rest of us though, back at the bar, later toasted the "World's Slowest Mugging".
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Thu 15 Jun 2006, 18:24, Reply)