Story of my wallet

Good Friday, Black Friday are turning out to be anathema to me... on a Good Friday in 1976 there was a theft in my house and on Black Friday the 25th November 2022,  I lost my wallet. The newspaper on Black Friday was enticing everyone with calls of Great Black Friday Offers ranging from small house hold items to big gadgets like mobile phones, refregirators, ACs etc. Wet Floor mop at home had worn out and required an urgent replacement. Late in the evening, I ventured out on my two wheeler with my wife on the pillion seat to buy a mop. Selection of the mop was in her domain - varieties of mops are available from a simple manual squeeze twist type mop stick to a Scotch-Brite Butterfly Mop with superior hands free squeezing mechanism, mops with microfibre bottom to sponge bottoms, the cost varying from just about ₹150/- to ₹1500/- The selection was, therefore, a specialist's job. 

 All my daily shopping is usually done in my immediate nighbourhood just around my house on a road  called Gurudwara Road, parallel to the one where I live. That road is laced on its both sides with shops selling everything from grapes to gold jewellery, Chiclets to Computers, in short A to Z that one requires for comfortable living. My first stop was to buy bananas at a roadside push cart fruit seller. Since the place was crowded with evening shoppers and vehicles plying on the road, I took out wallet from my pant pocket and gave my wife ₹100. She collected fruits from the vendor and returned to the scooter. While taking her pillion seat on the scooter, she handed me the change (currency notes) which I shoved the  in my shirt pocket since I had already kept my wallet in my pant pocket. As I did not wish to be hinder movement of people and other vehicles I hurriedly moved out from there. After traveling for some distance (about 200 meters) I stopped at another shop where the mops were on display. My wife got down to check them while I waited at a little distance away on the busy road still seated on my scooter. As she was still looking at the displayed mops, I decided to transfer the money that I had put in my shirt pocket to my wallet. I suddenly realised that the wallet was missing from my pant pocket. I realised that either I had failed to put the wallet securely back into my pant pocket near the banana cart or it had slipped out of my pocket while driving to my next halt on the road. I immediately rushed back to my home since I had also lost my bank Debit Card and Driving Licence which I carried in the wallet. I had to immediately block my Debit Card since there was a possibility of its misuse of it fell into undesirable hands. I promptly went through all required processes to safeguard against misuse of the debit card. 

There was a lingering dissatisfaction in my mind that I had returned home without once making a final search of the route to find if the wallet had  fallen off somewhere. When I hit the bed after supper, that thought still was haunting me but I slipped into sleep. I woke up quite early in the morning while it was still dark outside, around 5.00 AM. I decided that I immediately go out and make a re-run of my trip out for buying the mop. I took out my scooter and switching on the head light reached the spot where I first stopped to buy bananas. There was no one on the street at that hour and all shops were closed, the push carts neatly drawn to one side on the road edge with unsold items neatly covered and tied under thick plastic covers. All the rubble and thrash thrown by the people while shopping  the previous evening remained strewn on the road as the municipal cleaning staff had yet to arrive for clearing. Driving very very slowly and beaming the head light of my scooter in all directions, I looked for my wallet on the road along the distance I had traversed. Suddenly, mid way from banana cart to mop display shop, I noticed my dark brown wallet at the edge of the road amongst the thrash. It probably was not noticed by any one. Or if anyone had noticed, it was mistaken to be an old wallet thrown deliberately away. Whatever the reason, I was pleased to find it and  picked it up gleefully. I gave a loud cry of joy at my luck in finding my lost wallet. 

My wife, sleeping next, shook to wake me up and asked me the reason for my loud cry in my sleep. Waking up and coming to senses due to the violent shake given to me,  I suddenly realised that I was on my bed at home and that it was just a midnight dream that I was passing through when I let out that cry of joy. Saying nothing to my wife, i turned in my bed and sheepishly slipped into deep slumber again. Morning when I woke up, I saw an SMS in my mobile reading "Dear Customer, transaction through card ending XXXX has been declined due to UNAUTHORIZED USAGE. Please contact branch" I was glad to have acted the previous night without wasting any time in blocking my Debit Card. This time a loud cry of joy escaped from me in full conciousness, not for finding my lost wallet in my dream but for prompt action I had taken after losing my wallet in blocking my debit card!