Karma

Three years ago, on a Metro-North train, I sat next to a frazzled businessman. He got off a few stops before me, and a few minutes after he left, I noticed that he had left his wallet behind. I considered giving it to a conducter but when my stop came and one hadn't walked through my car, I decided to take the wallet with me. When I got home we googled the guy's name from his license and found his number. When we called, he hadn't even noticed that it was gone. He showed up at our house in half an hour and gave me $25 for my trouble.

Since then I've lost a lot of things: my passport, my cellphone (twice), and last Saturday, my wallet. Each time, I wonder when I'll get my karmic payback and have my lost item returned to me, but each time, Karma didn't smile upon me.
This past Saturday, after a disastrous and fruitless trip to a T-mobile store, I realized that my wallet was gone. When I went back to the store, the salespeople claimed not to have seen anything. It had my credit cards, my bank card, cash, and my ID. The only card I had at home was my frequent buyer card from the liquor store, oddly fitting. I cancelled my credit cards and chalked it up as lesson.

Today when I opened my mailbox, I noticed that my new insurance card had come, and that there was a large manila envelope in the mailbox too. "I'm not expecting anything," I thought. Then as I clutched it in my hands, it dawned on me that this was wallet. A little thinner, all the cash, even the change was gone, but everything else was there. So thank you, nameless Samaritan. You have restored my faith in humanity. Almost.