Safe or silly?

    I am a paranoid traveler. In the past, I have slept with my computer in my pillow case, brought my purse into the shower stall, and locked my backpack to the bedpost with a bicycle chain. I still sleep with my keys latched to my bra.
    I thought it was impossible to up the ante from this absurd level of caution. (Most people roll their eyes when I tell them about my desperate safety measures.) Then I got to Naples. I settled in at my hostel, locked up my valuables (again, with a bicycle lock inside the locker), and headed out in the city with a day purse. By purse, I mean shoulder bag with a latch, outside zipper, inner zipper, and safety pin securing my wallet to the pockets. I was about to head down the stairs when the reception man stopped me and curtly said, "No money. No credit card. No passport." I looked at him, not fully understanding. He pointed to my bag and said, "Don't carry anything." I didn't quite believe him, but then I thought, "This is not coming from a worried mother or a cautious girlfriend. This is coming from a 50-something-year-old resident MAN from Naples. If even he is this paranoid, maybe there's something to what he's saying."
    Like an obedient child, I turned around and reconsidered my daypack. I put my credit cards in my passport and put the passport in a sock. I stuffed the sock, wrapped around a towel, in my traveler's backpack. I safety-pinned my money to my bra and took off all jewelry except for my rings. And then I transferred one of them to my ring finger, hoping to cultivate the impression that I have a burly fiancé waiting to clobber anyone who approaches me. The only object of value now in the "purse" was my camera. Walking out again, I must not have looked too different, for the man again looked at me skeptically.
    Now on my third day in Naples, I'm still trying to figure this thing out -- words from the "wise" make me feel as though even my level of caution is not enough. While I'm here the next few days, my goal is to walk the line between being paranoid and being a pansy.
    Or maybe I'll just become a paranoid pansy this week.