Summary

Farida, a 26-year-old living in Paris, discovers her life savings have been depleted by an identity thief who has been living lavishly, prompting her to take advantage of the fraudulent purchases and enjoy the luxuries herself.

Abstract

Farida, a young Parisian, finds her routine Saturday disrupted when she notices unusual activity on her bank statements. An identity thief has drained her savings on indulgences like Starbucks, a juice cleanse, an opera ticket, and a spa session. Initially shocked and angry, Farida decides to embrace the situation by impersonating the thief to enjoy the already-purchased luxuries, such as a spa visit and opera tickets. She even adopts a new, healthier lifestyle by trying out the juice cleanse that was delivered to her door. The experience leads her to appreciate the taste and choices of the identity thief, whom she begins to see as a life coach and role model.

Opinions

Farida initially reacts with shock and anger upon discovering the unauthorized transactions.
She perceives the identity thief as a woman with elegant taste and an affinity for luxury.
Farida's opinion shifts from outrage to intrigue, as she begins to admire the thief's lifestyle choices.
She takes a humorous and adventurous approach to the situation by pretending to be the thief to enjoy the purchased experiences.
Farida seems to appreciate the unexpected twist in her life, viewing it as an opportunity for personal growth and enjoyment.
The story implies a critique of the impersonal nature of modern banking, as Farida was not promptly notified of the suspicious activity on her account.

Farida Hired a New Life Coach

Flash fiction

It’s a typical Paris studio apartment on a sunny Saturday morning. Farida is up and about to embrace the weekly drill.

This is her day off from responsibilities, work stress, drama and it’s also the last of August — which means in a week, she’ll meet with her friends scattered all over France for her birthday.

As always, she quickly grabs a bite, puts on a pair of jeans and a yellow T-shirt that reads “I Love Paris”, which easily translates to “I don’t belong here but hey, I’m trying to fit in.”

Farida runs down the stairs as her informal form of workout and spends several minutes scooching her bike out of the building’s storage room. She takes it to run the usual errands between stopping by the same atm machine, grocery shopping at the cheap supermarket that only accepts cash, and reading a book by the Seine.

Right when it’s around 1 pm, Farida practices her serve at the public tennis court then heads back to cook lunch, meal prep for the entire week, and watch a show or two on Netflix.

Farida leads a pretty chill life as a 26-year-old and tries as much as possible to have fun on Saturdays. As this also is the end of the month, there’s that creepingly annoying chore she still has to do — checking her bank statements.

She pours the boiling water that hurls off the teapot to join the lonely chamomile tea bag, grabs her tacky pink eyeglasses, fluffs her pillow, and places her laptop on top of her crossed legs.

Google. Bank logo. Username. Passcode. She’s signed in for a surprise.

In right about a second, Farida’s anxiety jumped off the charts. Thus far, all she’s seen are red attention alerts all around the webpage and they all seem to be pointing somewhere.

Oh.

She immediately picks her phone up, stands straight, and clears her throat.

“La Banque Populaire here. How may I help you?” speaks the voice on the other side.

“Hi..uhh, I just signed into my personal account, and I don’t understand what’s going on! There's a bunch of attention signs all over my page.”

“Oui Madame. This means there is unusual activity on your account. We’ve tried to contact you multiple times before but our calls never reached you. Unfortunately, you have gone below the minimum amount in your savings account, and …”

“WHAT! What are you saying woman, there’s no way. I … I” — Farida has a little edge and it’s been released onto this poor lady.

“…you can check that by clicking the top right button, enter the code received by phone, and confirm whether you were responsible for all transactions,” continued the counselor calmly.

Teetering back towards her bed, She fiercely grabs the laptop and keeps scrolling through all the purchases made in August. The amount of scrolling done only worsened Farida’s temper.

Starbucks € 6.25
Beginner juice cleanse — Pressed juice € 30
1x ticket Opéra Parisienne € 75
1x spa session € 50
Starbucks € 6.25
Carrefour € 57.12
Starbucks € 6.25

And the list went on and on leaving Farida raging more without fail.

“Merde!! € 57 to grocery shop? A € 50 spa session? This is definitely a woman, and she’s spending all of my life savings! I don’t even allow myself to step into Starbucks more than once per paycheck.

This has got to be a joke. In two days, this big-spender has blown money on luxuries more that I do in months. She stole my life and living it better than me?”

Damage control needed to be done.

“Alô, Ms. Farida Ucef here. I have reserved a spa session and would love to inquire when it was scheduled for…9 am tomorrow? Perfect, I’ll be there. Thank you.” It felt like a maniac laugh moment and nothing stopped it MWAHAHA.

After a couple of calls and what felt like the first fun in a while, Farida got herself two seats at the Opéra next week, a juice-cleanse package expected by tomorrow after changing the delivery address and an early spa session in a matter of hours.

By 8:30 am, Farida was already at the spa place hoping to never cross paths with fake Farida. But, it’d be wrong not to admit “Farida” had an elegant taste in pampering services.

It was the best massage Farida ever had in…eight years? Not only did she sleep during aromatherapy, but she also felt her neck muscles entirely relax — It’s possible some gas slipped during her sleep as well. Oops. Wrong muscle-relaxing incident, could happen to anyone.

By the time she’d gone home, the package was already dropped by her door.

“Hmm…Should I try the vitamin C juice shot first? Orange, lemon, pineapple, and ginger sound pretty healthy to me. Or, the green shot with kale, mint, lemon, parsley, cucumber, and spinach?”

She picks up the brochure that came with the lot and apparently, she were to take the six bottles in one day. Some people are really living, she thought!

For the day, she’ll follow instructions no questions asked. The vitamin C juice was pretty sour, it made her wince so hard but was totally worth it. That felt like a cleanse for the mind and soul. The celery shot was the hardest to take and bloated her up like a balloon.

Six shots in, Farida signs in again to find her identity thief, new life coach, and role model had newly purchased two tickets to Roland-Garros for September 21st.

It was at that moment that Farida knew. She clicks the top right button, types the code, and…confirms she made all previous transactions. Five seconds later, she dials the Rolland-Garros service hotline.