25 cents!

Everbody in my family complaints that I spend way too much time on the Internet. May be it is true. I like to fill up even some surveys if there is a possibility of some kind of freebie for participating in surveys. I try to be very honest when I fill the personal questions in the surveys. Even if some of them were embarrassing to admit to my close ones, I wanted to be honest in my surveys. In one of the latest surveys, one question was:

If you see a coin on the floor will you pick it up?

1. Never
2. Sometimes
3. Only if I feel like
4. Only if nobody is watching
5. Always

My answer you could have guessed. It was 5. Always. Yes, I always picked up stuff from the floor lost by other people. Whenever I got something like that I was very happy. “Finders are keepers” was my policy. 

Then one day when I was visiting a nearby City, I got sometime to spend in a large shop all by myself. I had more than two hours to spend. So I was not in a hurry and also I was not in need of anything in particular. It was a huge shop like Walmart. I took a Cart and started to walk from one end of the shop. I liked knives in particular. Sharp knives are my weakness. I am not that interested to work in the kitchen, even though I liked to cook. So to make me interested to prepare vegetables & meats for cooking, just to pamper myself, I tried to acquire fancy, sharp knives. Likewise, I didn’t like to shower in cold water while I was in the College hostel. To pamper myself and persuade for cold shower, I always bought very expensive body soaps. So I was giving particular interest to knife sets and soaps during my tour. I liked new kitchen gadgets to make my kitchen work easier. I went through almost all the aisles of the shop. Picked up a few things, evaluated the quality and the price and weighing whether I really need it. I was carrying a small wallet in which I have kept my driver’s license , money, checkbooks  and credit cards. It was almost two hours by the time I finished my touring of the shop.

I didn’t buy anything and so I left the cart near the cashier at the front.Now I have to wait for Babu’s (my husband) phone call. My iPhone was in the pocket of my jacket. Then I remembered, where is my purse? OMG!  I don’t remember where I left it. It was not in my hand all the time. Where did I lose it? I tried to remember the aisles I visited and the stuff I examined for a closer look. I ran back to the shop. I traced back my footsteps starting from the first aisle. Stopped wherever I stopped by to examine the stuff. May be I would have left it somewhere where I needed both of my hands to examine something which needed a closer look. I completed my path. My wallet was nowhere! I stopped at a cashier and asked whether she got any lost and found item within one hour. All in vain! All my credit cards were in the wallet, my license, my pocket money may be at the most $55.00I was not too concerned about the money. I became very desperate thinking about the after effect of losing all the other items. I did panic. I asked the cashier whether she will announce on the public address system about my lost wallet. She was very understanding…. May be she also would have undergone same kind of turmoil once in her life. She announced. We waited about fifteen minutes. Nobody turned up with a claim of finding a wallet. I was very sad and walked out of the shop. Then I saw a man walking towards the cashier with my wallet. I started calculating in my mind, what should I give him to show how grateful I am to get back my wallet. $55 dollars worth of my pocket money in my wallet is nothing comparing to the work & agony I would had to go through if I didn’t get back my wallet at all ! May be I should write a cash check for $100.00. I was so relieved and said “Thank you” with a sincere smile and grateful look.”Let me give you something in return”, I said to him while he handed me the wallet. I opened the wallet, took out my checkbook, opened it.”No Madam. I don’t want anything in return.” He said.”No, let me give you something in return, so that I will feel better. ” I said.He was not ready for that.”Ok Madam. If you insist, I will take something from you. Give me the numbers.”What numbers? I was wondering…”Super Bowl numbers”. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream!

He would have thought these Indians would have some magical power to know next day’s Super Bowl numbers. I gave him some magical numbers came to my mind and started praying earnestly to God let the Super Bowls numbers of tomorrow should be the numbers  I gave this weird, crazy American. I often wondered whether he got any of the numbers I gave him. After this incident I always remembered the sadness and panic of the person who lost stuff. This thought diminished my pleasure of finding “lost and found ” stuff.

We were in the check in line at the airport, when Babu gave me some papers he might not need immediately to keep  in my handbag.I knelt down beside my hand luggage to put in the papers. Then I saw this 25 cents on the floor, shining at me with an open invitation .  I put the papers inside. I was almost going to pick up the 25cent from the floor, Babu said.”Get up. Get up… People are in line behind you! ” I didn’t get time to pick up the coin from the floor. I felt sorry for myself. Here after, how will I tick option 5 as my answer “Always”? All through out rest of my journey, I was feeling sad thinking about my lost 25 cents! To this day, I keep seeing that glittering quarter in my mind whenever I am in a queue at check in counters. My lost 25 cents!