My granny always used to say that if a person could find what they were looking for inside that purse she carried, they could have it.

Jokingly, I used to say it too, but after writing stories over the last two days about how people have taken purses and the contents inside them, I won’t be saying that anymore.

On Monday, I wrote about an Enterprise couple that took a clerk’s purse. In today’s paper, there’s a story about another couple and a juvenile who took a woman’s purse from an abandoned buggy outside Wal-Mart.

I think the latter of the two situations makes me the angriest.

I was taught growing up that we didn’t take what didn’t belong to us. Now, some might pose the argument “Finders keepers, losers weepers,” but I disagree with that. A quarter on the ground is a lot different than a burgundy Kate Spade in a buggy.

Ask any woman and she’ll tell you her life is in that purse. In fact, my aforementioned granny used to carry a Bible, a toothbrush and a change of underwear in hers — she was a nurse at Mizell and was often caught having to pull a double shift. “Be prepared” was her motto.

Inside mine, however, you’ll find my wallet, some loose change, my keys and most importantly my cell phone and my planner — the two things that tell me where I need to be and when I need to be there and who to call if I get lost.

I’ve had my wallet stolen before, several years ago. It actually turned up about six months after it was taken out of my car. Someone found it in a ditch and turned it into the police department. Of course, all the money and my credit card was gone, but my driver’s license was there. Still, someone did the right thing once it was found — they turned it in.

As a pleasant side note, the police actually found the guy that stole my wallet. He apparently had quite the thing going. He would wait until about 2 a.m. and would go around checking the inside of all the unlocked cars in the neighborhood, stealing whatever was of value inside them.

Believe it or not, he even went to jail for it — which is exactly where these folks responsible for these recent thefts landed. And that’s sad.

The latter couple, from what I was told, turned themselves into authorities and admitted that what they had done was wrong.

I applaud them for that. Taking responsibility for our actions is one of the factors that mark us as adults. Knowing you have done wrong and stepping up to take the consequences takes great courage.

I don’t want to sound like I am condemning them — or anyone else who has done similar actions.

I don’t know their situation. It could be they were facing desperate times and needed to take desperate measures. I don’t know. But what I do know is that my granny would have had a multitude of sayings for this situation.

“You reap what you sow.” “What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.” Or better yet…“What goes around comes around.”

Now, I really believe that.