Oh good grief naive and dumb Midwest person. You don't hang your pocketbook off the back of your chair in a restaurant! Particularly with 3k in cash! You keep it on your lap or...maybe, between your feet with a strap hooked around your ankle.
Even living in safer places now I do this, the NYer in me. Someone noticed me doing it in Mandarin class, yeah, old habits die hard.
In NYC they have to announce bringing your valuables with you as you go up to receive communion during church.
Yeah, Kristi, you're not in the Dakotas anymore...