Feeling very lucky

Dale played kickball on Thursday night, as since it was a playoff game (and since Adelaida and I had only been to one regular season game), we decided to go to the game to cheer on the Mandrakes. Adelaida and I had been swimming just before Dale's game, so we arrived just as the game was starting. I remember thinking very clearly, as I got out of the car and began gathering all of our various gear, "I'd better not leave my wallet sitting in plain sight on the front seat."

What happened after that is a little less clear. I gathered our blankets and Adelaida's warmer clothes and the diaper bag and a toy for Adelaida, we walked over to the field and watched Dale play kickball (Team Mandrake X won, of course), and when the game was over we all left (Dale and Adelaida in the car I had driven there in; me in the car Dale had driven to the game).

We got home, unpacked both cars, played with Adelaida a bit, then went to sleep. The next morning Dale left for work early and I stayed home, cleaned the house, then had several kids and moms over for a playgroup. After they'd all left, Adelaida and I ran several errands in Albuquerque--dropping off knives to be sharpened, looking at phones at AT&T and Verizon, dropping off some baby toys to a friend--none of which required me to show an ID or use a credit card or cash. And then I went to a card store to buy father's day cards. I picked out the cards, went to the cash register, reached into the diaper bag, and couldn't find my wallet. I had no cash, no credit card, no drivers license.

At that point, I assumed I had left it in one of the cars (either than morning or the night before at the kickball game) or at home and wasn't too worried about it. I searched the car I had, then called Dale and asked him to search the car he had; neither of us could find the wallet. Adelaida and I were going to a concert at the zoo that evening with a friend (and wouldn't need the wallet for that), so I asked Dale to look for it at home that night. He searched, but couldn't find it.

I sat at the zoo concert (where we saw a kangaroo, a Bengal tiger, and the new baby giraffe) and mentally retraced every step I had taken since the last time I was certain I had my wallet, and realized that it could have been anywhere. I called the AT&T store to ask if they had found it (they hadn't). I still had a little bit of hope that it was at home, and Dale just wasn't looking in the right places (I'd put away laundry that morning, so it could be in my sock drawer; I sometimes set things down in Adelaida's room on her bookcase, so it could be there; I'd taken our recycling out to the garage that morning, and maybe I'd put the wallet in the recycling bin; I once lost my keys because I put them in the pantry while unloading groceries, maybe I'd done that with my wallet).

After the concert, I searched all the unlikely places I could think of, to no avail. The most likely place I had left the wallet was at the kickball park.

Saturday morning, after working out in the yard for a few hours, we went into Albuquerque and stopped by the kickball park. We looked in the parking lot, where we were sitting by the field, even in the trash cans, but couldn't find it. I was making a list of all the cards I'd lost when we got a phone call from a wonderful man named Dave. He was at a Little League park several miles away and had found my wallet in a trash can there! We drove over to the Little League park and talked a bit more with Dave, where we learned that he and some of the boys from one of the Little League teams had been emptying the trash can at the park, when the bag broke and the trash fell all over the ground. They were picking the trash up when one of the boys found my wallet. They looked through it for a phone number, found my business card, and called me.

The cash had been taken out of the wallet, but everything else was there -- my drivers license, credit card, ATM cards, insurance cards, and so much more. I felt so lucky that the person who had found the wallet, removed the cash, transported it across town, and thrown it away had chosen to throw it away in a trash can with a bag that would break when it was removed from the can, and that a person as honest and kind as Dave had been the one to empty that particular trash can. I also felt very lucky that the person who had found it had only taken the cash, and left all the other cards in the wallet.

I've had my wallet back for about 24 hours and have checked for it several times. It will be a long time before I forget this lesson to keep better track of my wallet.

Now, here's a random cute picture of Adelaida, eating blueberries: