I had a busy day yesterday. My first customer came at 9:30 and bought ten sets of tea cups and saucers. Then the second customer (a dealer) came at 12:30 and bought $200 worth of dishes. After she and her husband left, I left to run three errands – thrift store, Mc Calous Department store and CVS.
Since I’d also had a big dish sale on Tuesday, I decided I’d run up to the Salvation Army on my way to my dance date a few towns over. When I got to the thrift store, I parked in front, got my bags and wrapping stuff and went in. There was lots to buy and my cart was soon full. That’s when I realized that my cross-body bag was not across my body. Where was my purse? Had I left it in the car?
I went out to the car, but there was no purse. A homeless man was sitting on a chair, talking to himself and laughing. My mind wandered, and then I said, Stop being paranoid, Susan.
I went back into the store and looked again through my bags. No purse. I went back out to the car and dug around for my rabbit coin purse, where I keep quarters for parking meters. Then I found a second coin purse. I took the pile of quarters inside and counted them – 40, so ten dollars.
I selected ten items in my cart and paid for them. I kept mentioning that I couldn’t find my purse. Then I called my daughter to see if she could find it at home. Had I left it there? It was a common event when my arms were filled with other things to leave home without it. She couldn’t find it.
I called my dance date and told him about the missing purse.
“Aw, come out dancing with me and we can forget our troubles.,” he said.
How does a person say no to that?
When I got home, I ran around looking for my purse but couldn’t find it. I went to bed, exhausted from two hours of partner dancing and dreamed about my stolen purse.
This morning, I got up and called Capitol One Bank, Citibank, and Wells Fargo to cancel my cards. I went on the Medicare website to print out a new Medicare card. I thought of the shady guy in the store last evening and how he’d walked by me twice. Had I ever left my shopping cart unattended? Had he reached into my canvas bag and plucked out my purse?
Then I realized my driver’s license was going to be a pain in the butt to get replaced.
A woman came for plates at 11:00 and ended up buying 87 of them for her baby shower. She was done by noon, packed up, and ready to drive an hour to her home in Morgan Hill. I decided I’d go up to the Salvation army again to see if I could find my purse in the gutter somewhere near the store. Maybe my license would still be inside.
When I got there, two homeless guys were watching me go in. I told the cashier I had lost my purse the day before. She asked me to write down my name on a piece of paper. She came back with my purse, and everything was inside of it!
I tried to give her some money and she said it would have to be a donation to the Salvation Army and then waved my hand away.
Someone had turned it in, which means that I must’ve dropped it. What a doof! I did too many things yesterday. I need to slow down and not make big mistakes like dropping my purse.
Shame on me for blaming the homeless men outside the store. Someone did the right thing and turned it in.
There is hope for humanity after all, or as my neighbor said, faith in humanity.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 