I just scared myself real good.
I thought I’d lost my wallet.
The thing is, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen it, and I hadn’t used it for a couple of days. My heart sunk further and further as each place I searched turned up empty… I was really fucked becuase my wallet contains really everything I need to survive in modern society. Driver’s license, gaijin card, bank card, postal savings card, credit card, health insurance card, hospital card, dental clinic card, latest bank statement, a million membership cards, business cards, a few vital phone numbers jotted down on a waxy napkin, pictures of my wife and family, spare key for my car, a ball of pocket lint, my company’s pocket calendar, and a partridge in a 20th century pear tree.
To apply for replacements of all that shit would have taken longer than I have in Japan, starting with the driver’s license and gaijin card in order to be able to prove my identity at the bank, since all the cash I have on hand is the kind that jingles, in my piggy bank (actually the cardboard tube my primo bottle of Cazadores came in). I was in a sweat looking for that goddamn thing, believe me. And then I called Nam, because that’s who I always depend on when I lose shit – wallet, keys, keitai, my glasses (that’s the funniest one cuz I cant see SHIT w/o my specs). Of course, she wasn’t answering her cell in Thailand, which made me despair even more.
Anyway, after a whole hour of searching, I finally was about to give up and go file a report at the police station, and then I spotted a familiar shape underneath a car rag that I had moved today when sorting out shit in preparation for my big move to Thailand. At once, my heart jumped and I threw the evil rag aside to reveal my dear, dear wallet. Oh how I love you. I am so happy now.
Funny how things can turn in an instant. Sometimes life is sweet:
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Yeah, we all do that at times. When I leave my apartment, I always put my wallet in my back pocket when I go. Thing is, in my dress slacks I wear to work, the pocket is a bit loose and when I sit on my scooter as I drive in, I can sometimes note that the wallet rides up. So one day, I arrive at work… and the wallet isn’t there. Now, it’s possible that I left it at home, but it’s more likely that it fell out on the road to work somewhere. I simply cannot recall having put it in my pocket, nor can I recall not having put it there…and I have two 2-hour classes starting in fifteen minutes, while for all I know, everything that is vital to my identity and survival may be lying on Route 20 somewhere, along the 50-minute route from home to work.
So after agonizing, and with the sympathetic support of the office staff, I cancel my first class and drive home, all the way scanning the road on the opposite side of traffic, looking for a dark-colored lump of driven-over leather. Nothing, nowhere. And when I arrive home, there it is, where I usually leave it. A stupid error and bad memory, but if I were to find myself in the same situation again–no wallet when arriving at school–I’d do the same thing again. It’s just too important an object to lose.
That said, I have started a new habit: whenever I drive my scooter, I first put my wallet securely in the helmet well, where it won’t drop out.