3.19.2008

You have GOT to be kidding me

This hasn’t happened to me in… well, ever, as far as I can remember. I lost my wallet. Really, truly, back of a taxicab (as far as I can recollect) lost my wallet. I AM a chronic misplacer… If I had a parrot in college, it surely would have been squawking the phrase, “has anyone seen my ID card?” And I am always wandering around the house collecting items (keys, cell phone) before walking out the door. But I can’t EVER remember actually losing my wallet.

And based on my last post, you might be wondering if I am out of town… well, yes, yes I am. Today is my last day (supposedly) on my project in San Francisco, and I am flying out of Sacramento tonight for 2 fabulous days of March Madness (more on that in a later post - yes, as the writer's strike came to an end and finally we will have good TV again, you will have new blog posts to read from yours truly).

To retrace my steps (which I have done a hundred times): I had an early meeting this morning (6:30am to be exact) at the office. I got up early, thought I had enough time to get ready, pack, get out of the hotel and walk to the office (about a 15 minute walk). Of course I miscalculated, AND when I got outside I realized it is still dark at 6:20am. Damn you, daylight savings time, damn you (except at night when it is still light out, then you are fine, daylight savings time). So I got a cab.

I know I had my wallet out in the cab, because I got my money out to pay the driver. And then, when I went to get my wallet around 9:20am (I mistimed everything this morning and 2 meetings later, still hadn’t had breakfast), it was not there. I went through all my bags over and over… searched the floor, searched the offices I had been in… nothing. I started to panic… I called the hotel, went out and looked on the street in front of my office building (right… like a wallet would have just laid untouched on a city sidewalk for 3.5 hours), called the taxi company (which I think was the taxi I took, but I can’t say for sure)… seriously? Is this happening to me?

Then I called Scout and 1) asked him to get my shiny new passport from home so that I could board the plane tonight and 2) asked him if I should start canceling my cards. Which I had to make a list of, and I am not sure it is complete. Do you know what cards you have in your wallet?

Dialed the first 800 number and spent 3 minutes trying to get through the “please enter your account number” prompts. Finally got through after endlessly pretending I was calling from a rotary phone by ignoring the menu selections, explained to the girl that I was reporting a lost card and then... she asked me for my account number. I held back the rage and said again, “I LOST my card, so I don’t HAVE it to give the number to you.” 37 security questions later, card is cancelled. One down, three to go. Second verse, worse than the first… joint card w/ Scout yielded a crazy customer service rep who was practically yelling at me. I hung up on her, called Scout and told him he had to call in to those crazy peeps because I couldn’t deal with them. Subsequent craziness so on and so forth with the other cards…

At home for lunch, Scout noticed a message on our home phone. It was Daniel – he said he found my wallet. But he didn’t leave his phone number (and I think we are the only people in the world who don’t have caller ID on our home phone). Of course he didn't leave his number. Why would he? It's not like people with missing wallets need them. So I told Scout to leave a new message on our answering machine: “You have reached Scout and nro – if this is Daniel and you found nro’s wallet, please call her cell phone at 867-5309.” I guess it is good that he found it, but it would have been exponentially more helpful if he left a contact number. Is that asking too much? I guess I should be happy that someone was responsible and respectable enough to attempt contacting me at all. But I will reserve final judgement until I have my wallet in my possession.

Hopefully I will get my wallet back – any bets on whether my cash will be there or not?

1 comment:

Alisa Hamilton said...

You will get your wallet back, maybe with the money. If not, you can still board a plane without ID. You will pretty much have to be body cavity searched, but it can be done. Luke did it once...shockingly enough. Good luck with the customer service agents. I have nothing positive to say about that situation.