Stroke of luck

It seems the gods of good fortune were looking after Stephen and me yesterday afternoon. We decided to visit a beach about quarter of an hour away, at the same time, giving me an opportunity to drive Stephen’s new car, which I did, on the way home. The beach was beautiful, with some unusually warm sun turning the water a light shade of blue and making the walk a pleasant one.

A minute from home, I pulled into the shop for some milk, and Stephen jumped out to purchase it.

‘’Where is my wallet?’’ he exclaimed. Being a new car, we both knew there were many new places it could be hidden, or maybe even have dropped through the back of the seat, but our search was fruitless.

Then Stephen had a dawning realisation he may have left the wallet on the roof of the car as we left the beach.

He jumped into the driver’s seat and off we sped. We passed many cars on the way, but I was hopeful that no one would have visited the spot where we had parked. The beach was a couple of kilometres off the busy road and these cars we were passing would have been on their commute back from town.

My thoughts were focused on our parking spot and a woman we had seen pushing her toddler in a stroller as we pulled out of the reserve. I was hoping she may have picked it up.

Suddenly, still on the main road, Stephen jammed on his brakes. ‘’It’s over there, I’m sure, that was it’’. I hadn’t seen a thing, and certainly was not expecting it to have travelled this far on the roof. I wasn’t going to begin looking until we reached the gravel road.

Stephen did a quick u-turn, and sure enough, there was his wallet, still full of money, lying in the middle of the road. How many times do we drive over something and wonder what it is? We would have passed at least a dozen cars coming towards us and there would have been many following us as we drove home. This is a busy road. I glanced into the nearby drain and saw a card lying there, and another. Stephen climbed out of the car and walked five or six metres ahead, where he found another, and still another, after crossing the road. I crossed over too and walked a few metres in the other direction and there were two more.

Amongst the collection, were his bank card, and driver’s license, two important ones. A memory shot through me, when I pulled the Covid pass out of the drain. I had forgotten about that period of our lives, when these were needed to enter certain premises.

We were so lucky the wallet fell off the car when it did, as it would have been very difficult to have spotted it amongst the brown dirt on the gravel road or in a water-laden pot hole.

The relief of finding it was immense. It is the inconvenience factor of such a loss that is the most difficult to deal with. All those cards would have needed to be replaced, and bank accounts closed. Plus, although we have some very honest people in our community, some are not so. Someone could do a lot of damage having one’s bank card and driver’s license at their disposal. And even if someone with good intentions had retrieved it, it would have been difficult finding the exact spot it landed to search for the cards, as I doubt anyone finding the wallet would have looked in the surrounding drains.

Stephen thinks a lotto ticket is in order.

And did I like the new car? It was brilliant, just glided over those potholes. The fact the wallet stayed on the roof as long as it did is testament to the smoothness of the ride.