Only good things happen!

This is a phrase I borrowed from a friend because something good really happened when I expected the worst. He, to be honest, wasn’t refering to something all that drastic, but this sentence stuck :) like glue.

Imagine a Sunday late evening. You’ve just had a long day, first visiting friends for breakfast, shopping and lunch out. Hey! There are times when shopping is work! At least I would like to think (read justify) it. I make this ‘to do’ list of the things to shop and tick them off as I buy the stuff. So, anyways, coming back to this Sunday, the highlight of the day was the Madhubani painting I bought.

And then some clothes for your sister, bro-in-law, and the nieces. It’s not been a very kind day; the sun has been shining (shame on it for forgetting it is winter) and beating down your back and you’ve been baked to a nice brown.

And then you’ve walked a lot. You’ve walked some more and shopped a little more. You’ve been piling the car truck with bags, but there’s always space for more. Its now past 9 and you are just dying to get home and off your feet, have dinner, some tea and off to la la land. Right? Sure, only the there was a little drama that had to be enacted.

We get home and just about start dinner when I realise that I had to confirm my flight early next morning. Fetch the handbag – now, this is one of those HUGE ones that can hold a lot of stuff, has 4 pockets in all. Hunt for billfold, not in pocket 1, 2,3..!

Serious rummaging now.. pocket 4 isn’t big enough for the billfold! DG goes pale!

Rummage through shopping bags.. come up with clothes and some more clothes. No billfold? Nope!

Rummage again through all pockets of monster bag, wonder if the darn thing gobbled up my billfold. Sister and brother-in-law wondering if I am pulling a fast one!

Take mental stock of stuff in it. License, debit card, credit card (old dead one, but its in there) all the shopping credit cards (from Crossword, Westside, et al), and the flight ticket! Hit the panic button!

Try deep breathing… in out, in out… frantic recall of events: stop 1: I didn’t take out my wallet, stop 2: we didn’t buy anything, stop 3, sister had paid, stop 4: I paid for the car park! Deep breathing, in out, in out!

Wondering about what should be done – cancel debit card, figure how to smuggle into aircraft with a ticket, duplicate license.. everybody is planning different things. In the meantime, I continue to hopefully rummage my handbag like some genie would have put my wallet back there by magic!

Since the parking lot was the last place I remembered opening my bag, off we go back to the car park and start looking where we’d parked the car. We’d just reached and a security guard walks up to ask if we were looking for some stuff. We said yes, and he says “its with my manager”!!!

We let out these thrilled screams and hugged each other, smiles all round! You’d have though Tendulkar reached yet another landmark in his cricketing career..

Here is how this happened, the upturned bag was emptied in the parking lot when i got out... and all the contents in one pocket (including some embarrasing stuff) fell out and these guys - decent scrupulous ones at that, had it all safe and waiting for us! One of those times when my faith in human beings is reaffirmed!

Good things happen? Ya, sure, they do!