Lost and Found

I wore my jogging pants to Centennial Park yesterday. Because the pockets have a weird angle to them and stuff always falls out of them, I put my few possessions in a small yellow sack and just carried them around that way -- you know, so I wouldn't lose my stuff. I arrived at the park and placed my wallet, iPod, camera, cellphone, and my cash into the sack. (I'm wondering only now why the cash was not actually in the wallet itself. Oh well, I'm weird.)

For most of the day, the camera was around my neck and as I was leaving for my car, I took out the iPod to give it a listen. I also took out my cellphone to call my wife. I got to my car, left the park, and drove down West End Avenue to go home. As I approached the intersection of West End and Murphy Road, I got the impulse to stop in at the Exxon on the corner to buy a Mountain Dew. I stepped out of my car, remembered that my cash was in the yellow sack and reached back in for it. Crap. No yellow sack. Phone in pocket, iPod and camera on passenger seat, wallet and cash in the absent yellow sack. Crap!

I drove back down West End retracing my route. I trudged slowly through traffic while scouting the street for a yellow sack. Maybe I had left the sack on my car roof and it had blown off? I got back to where I had previously parked at Centennial Park and considered driving the route back to the Exxon again. Surely, I had left it on the car's roof. It must have blown off. Had I set it down on the Parthenon's steps when I had called my wife earlier? I didn't think so, and took a minute to consider walking to the Parthenon or getting back into the car. It was unlikely that it hadn't been found by someone else by now regardless of where I had left it. A free wallet with a credit card and roughly sixty bucks for a lucky passerby is what I had left, right?

I was amazed. I approached the Parthenon with a quick pace, hoping against hope. There was a small yellow sack on the steps. It was Labor Day and the park was packed. Diamond Rio and Pam Tillis were performing a free concert. People were everywhere. Who knows how many people walked by that yellow sack and thought it nothing more than empty litter. Whatever luck I was the recipient of, I was in awe to be reunited with my wallet and cash. Phew! Just another day in the life of Mike.