Polka-Dotted Wallet With a Lesson
A reminder about human nature comes at an opportune moment
The wallet was black with white polka dots, and it sat on the little counter just to the right of the pin pad at the self-checkout line. The wallet was small enough to fit in pants pockets if you really wanted to, like if you hate to carry a purse the way I hate to carry a purse.
I could picture the wallet there on the little counter. Exactly where I had set it and thought, “I shouldn’t be setting this here.” But there’s no good place to set a wallet at a self-checkout line, and my favorite grocery store, Aldi, had torn out most of the regular registers in favor of a cluster of self-checkout stations.
I had been a little distracted. Per usual. I had propped my two reusable shopping bags open next to each other, to the left of the pinpad, and then I tried to swipe each grocery item and get it into a bag before the self-checkout bot started demanding I shit or get off the pot.
Swipe, bag, get scolded. Swipe, bag, get scolded.
Where’s Daniel?
My 13-year-old had left for the bathroom just before I started checking out, and he’d usually be back already. He’s old enough that I don’t stand at the entrance to the bathroom anymore and size up all passersby, resisting the urge to holler into the abyss and ask whether everything’s ok in there. But he’s also young enough that I don’t like him gone for too long.
Swipe, bag, get scolded, wonder what’s taking Daniel so long. Swipe, bag, get scolded, wonder what’s taking Daniel so long.
Soon everything was scanned and bagged, and the bot was demanding payment that it would finally receive.
What is Daniel doing in there? Never mind, I don’t want to know.
I had paid the bot, gathered my bags, and turned to my left, noticing that a man nearby had the same light blue insulated Aldi bag that I had just slung over my shoulder. I had considered a hearty, “Nice bag! Isn’t it great?” . . . but that would have meant conversation.
Instead, I had kept walking, turned right, and then hovered near an empty register, waiting for my kid to reappear, which he did a moment later, pointing to something on his phone. Ah. Maybe that explained the delay. I had handed him a bag, we had headed out. I had re-parked the cart, had gotten my quarter back. Had gone home.
Of all the things I had done, I had not thought again about the little black wallet with the white polka dots.
Until the next afternoon.
We hopped in the car, I double-checked the center console for the little wallet . . . and it wasn’t there. And it wasn’t in the house. And it certainly wasn’t in my pocket.
Now the thing about Aldi is, they’re one of the greatest stores around. Great prices, great people. But I learned a hard truth about them that afternoon: one of the ways they save money and keep prices low is by having zero local customer service. I couldn’t call the store to ask about the wallet. (I could send an email to the national customer service team, which was as helpful as you might imagine it was.)
Proof:
I had to drive there.
Here’s where I should mention it had been a tough couple of weeks. Nothing catastrophic (yet), but sliding along a razor’s edge and hoping it wouldn’t cut too deep. I was having the kind of streak where everything seems to fall through and go sideways—yes, it can do both—which had been happening in slow motion for about seven months but suddenly seemed to accelerate, in a way that makes you you wonder what kind of slide this is going to be, like how fast it might go, for how long, and how far down.
I drove while holding back tears. I could picture the wallet there on the little counter. Exactly where I had set it and thought, “I shouldn’t be setting this here.”
A lost wallet isn’t catastrophic (yet), but it would be piling onto a streak, and I was almost at capacity. I tried to think positive thoughts, to summon some woo-woo good energy and manifest the wallet being there, but my body wasn’t feeling it. I turned my thoughts instead to preparation mode, bracing myself so I wouldn’t burst into tears in the store when they told me the wallet wasn’t there.
It was dark and a little drizzly when we got there, and I found the best parking spot in the lot.
“Let’s hope that’s a good sign,” I told Daniel, adding, “Wish me luck” as I headed in.
After an employee at a register radio’d someone in a little side office—and after a customer checking out gave me a little head nod with a “Good luck” as he left—a woman walked out of the office holding the little black wallet with white polka dots.
“Worst feeling in the world,” the woman said, and I responded with something like an appreciative “Oof.”
“I was pretty sure I left it here,” I added. “But then I had to hope the right person would find it.”
I had to hope the right person would find it.
But that’s the thing: most people are the right person.
I thought, as I drove away, how I had no idea who found it, but how certain I was that almost anyone would have turned it in. I thought about how it could have been the guy I once saw with a Trump shirt on, or it could have been the guy I once saw wearing a skirt. Or anyone in between.
Sometimes, many times, we overlap.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the Disaster of the Day and the horrible behavior we see on TV and online. It can be easy to forget that most of us, as we go about our days, aren’t like that.
Most people will hold a door open for a stranger. Most people will flag down a person who just dropped money out of their pocket. Most people will help a neighbor shovel their driveway.
Twice, I’ve found debit cards in an ATM and turned them in at the bank. A few months ago, I found an iPhone on a hiking trail and brought it to a police station. Most people would do the same.
The lost wallet was a needed reminder. If we look around at what’s right beside us, I believe we’ll see a world where one human will help another human, more often than not. A lot more often than not.
Do you have a similar story, of a time when a stranger came through for you? Please share. I think we’re going to need a lot of these reminders in 2024.
More times than I can count or even recall! One time in particular was a huge lifesaver: My phone fell from my coat (through the hole in the pocket that I had been meaning to fix, of course). And it was more than just my phone; it has a little wallet feature so my ID, credit card, and subway pass were also gone. The man who found it didn't steal my identity or even the $20 bill tucked behind my ID. He clicked on my emergency contact and texted my daughter (who, thankfully, was the person I was out with at the time). When I went to his home, a modest one in a modest neighborhood of Brooklyn, he refused to accept my offer of a reward. I will never forget his kindness.
I teared up a little reading this. It’s so true we hear all the bad things and really, as you wrote, there’s a lot of good and good folks out there. Thanks Karin for the reminder.