So it's the first beautiful spring day; I finish the first pass of the revision of my second book; I go to yoga; I try not to think about the fact that I'm going to have to take a 6 1/2 hour plane ride to LA tomorrow morning only to have to then turn around 28 hours later and take a 6 hour flight home; I get my nails done; I stop at Citarella on my stroll home to get an artichoke and goat cheese sandwich; I'm walking down West End Avenue enjoying the sunshine and my sandwich; I reach into my purse to get my iPod so I can have a soundtrack for the beautiful spring day/delicious sandwich and I realize....
My wallet's gone.
I run back to Citarella, telling myself that I'm getting all bent out of shape about nothing; that of course I just left it there and of course I'll walk in and the cranky woman who rang me up will have somehow transformed into a happy woman who will give me a big smile and say "You left your wallet" and hand it to me but that's not what happens -- instead I run in and the cranky woman is still cranky and when I ask her whether I left my wallet there and she gives me a look like I just asked her for her kidney and gruffly tells me no, I did not leave my wallet there.
This whole thing -- from checkout to the time I ran back -- has taken about seven minutes. So I run to my bank and the woman who helps me says "I betcha the first thing they did was run to the subway and buy MetroCards" and sure enough that's what they did -- $600 worth of MetroCards. Plus about $400 worth of other stuff on one of my credit cards which I still don't know what it is because the charges are still pending. So I spend an hour at the bank closing my regular checking account and my business one, and then I have to call all my credit cards and cancel those, and then I have to call the credit bureaus and report it so I don't become one of those people on Dateline you see who have had their lives screwed up by identity theft. And then I start thinking about the fact that I have to go get a new driver's license, a new MTV ID card, etc. etc. Plus, by this time the cold I've been staving off for days is about 50% full blown.
And then I get home and Jesus, one of my doormen, shows me a note from a gentleman named Richard who said that he found my wallet near 78th Street and that he'll come back to return it later. So I hang out and wait for Richard, but he doesn't come, and then I go to dinner with my friend Heidi, and when I get home, there's my wallet....
With everything in it other than the $2 cash I had in there.
Everything.
Credit cards, bank cards, driver's license.
Moral to the story: it totally sucks that there are people out there who steal wallets and it's totally amazing that there are good, decent, kind-hearted people who will go out of their way not once, but twice to return a now almost-75%-full-blown sick woman's wallet.
And now I'm going to bed because, as you can imagine, it's been a very long day.
3 comments:
OMG.....a New York Moment! I am so sorry to hear and feel the drama and anxiety running through your life yesterday. Amazing, just amazing!
oh no! but yay for nice folks who understand the nightmare of losing a wallet.
Lord, Lord -- what a potential disaster!
I found a wallet in a NYC cab once, and found the ID and looked up the name in the phone book and got the wallet owner's father on the phone. When I explained the situation, I'll never forget his somewhat snide tone when he said "Was there money in it?" I said, "Yes, there is. About $50 or more, I didn't actually count it." He exclaimed "There IS MONEY IN IT?!?!" Yah. Mister. There is.
I dropped it off in an envelope with his doorman. I left my name and address, and the next day a HUGE bouquet of flowers arrived. Costing way more than $50. But still, what I remember most, of course, what his first snide, then incredulous tone. :-D
Virtue is its own reward. Too bad some weasels will never get that. GET RESTED and WELL! xoxotlw
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