Mr. B's Wallet

My family was in town (South Florida) from Upstate New York for 2 weeks over the holidays. Taking advantage of the beautiful weather, my dad embarked on many of what he calls "Grand Adventures." These are basically exploration missions where he takes long walks around my development and the surrounding area to see what he can see. We have wildlife and plants that don't live in Upstate New York and being that he's a 6th grade science teacher, the little lizards and coconuts we're so used to are always fun for him.

After one Grand Adventure he came back with some coconuts, which he cracked open to find very foul smelling coconut milk. One of them had a gecko on it, which hitched a ride all the way from the community pool back to our house. Other times he found loose change or saw a cool bird. Other times, it was just a nice walk.

The day before he left, though, he returned with his biggest find of the trip, a wallet... complete with driver's license, bank debit card and cash. He found it next to the newspaper vending machines about a mile down the road.

I thought it would be easy to track down the owner since the license was inside. It took all of 30 seconds to find the phone number on yellowbook.com. Of course, the number was no longer in service. A call to directory assistance yielded no match for that name in my county or the 3 surrounding counties. I searched through his wallet to see if I could find another phone number, with no luck.

There was a fitness club membership card in the wallet, so I called the one closest to my house (the card didn't say which one he went to and it was a national chain), explained what happened and asked if they could contact the man (Mr. B) and give him my phone number. They told me I could drop the wallet off to them and they'd give it to him if he came in to that particular facility inquiring about it. No, thank you.

There was a bank debit card in there, too, so I called the local branch. They wouldn't relay a message but told me if I brought in the wallet, they'd call Mr. B while I was there, so I'd know they really contacted him. Off Dad and I went to the bank, wallet in hand, only to find out that even though someone was answering phones, the branch didn't really open for another 20 minutes. Oh well, it was a nice day to wait.

The first phone number the bank rep tried got through to Mr. B, who knew right where he'd lost the wallet and when. It hadn't been gone long, and he was quite relieved to get the call that it had been found. He asked to speak to me so he could thank us in person and asked what he could do to repay us. Nothing, I told him, we were happy to help him get it back. He went on and on about how thankful he was, how he needs his license for his job and couldn't work without it. What a great way for us all to start the new year, with Mr. B knowing there are still honest people in the world, and with Dad and I knowing we did a good thing.

We left the wallet at the bank, Mr. B was going to come pick it up. We didn't leave our name or phone number. Didn't need to... we knew it was in good hands and we didn't want to give Mr. B the impression that he needed to thank us again. In hindsight, I wish I had left him a little note about Paying it Forward when he could, or tucked myself away in the corner of the bank lobby to see the reaction on his face when he realized everything in his wallet was still right where he had left it... license, bank card, $49 cash in the main part and even the $100 bill he had folded up and tucked in between a collection of other cards and papers.

Though I'm sure we made his day brighter, returning that wallet to him probably meant just as much to us. It was nice to do a nice thing, an honest thing, for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. If you ever have the opportunity to do a nice thing anonymously, take it. It'll make your heart smile.

~*~*~ May you always remember to dance in the rain, and may you have plenty of ladybugs beside you! ~*~*~

Blessings,
Kat