What's gone is back again

Living in Belgium for 6 weeks was a definite good time (see the 19 post previous). Now we're back in the U.S. and getting into the swing of things. Our apartment experienced a bit of flooding and we had some dead species in our kitchen, but after spraying everything down with bleach and treating our carpets with baking soda, things are back to normal.

Just yesterday, I went to the store to stock up our cupboards with the basics. Upon leaving the store, I ran to the car. It was raining. Between leaving the store and getting to my car, I lost my phone. You see, I had put it in my front pocket which was already taken by my wallet (my other pocket contained my car keys), and I don't think the pocket was made for items larger a stick of chapstick. As soon as I discovered my loss, I went back into the store and asked the employees, "Has anyone seen or turned in a phone?" Nothing. I walked the path from the grocery store counter to my car several times. Nothing.

As soon as my husband got home, we used his phone and started calling mine, again and again to annoy whoever had my phone or to get someone to pick it up, but we got nothing but voice mail. Finally, after about 20 calls in quick succession a man answered. My husband responded, "This is my wife's phone," he explained in a surprised voice, amazed someone actually answered, "and we'd like to get it back." He then proceeded to try to get an address from the man, who, for some reason, could clearly state the numbers to his home, but not tell us his street. We then explained to him that we were at the grocery store and, if he could give us directions to his house, we were more than happy to pick it up from him. "I'll bring it to you," he said, "I'm in a green van." What a nice guy, I thought to myself. Two minutes later a tan van showed up. The man handed over the phone and then made a request, "Give me ten dollars for gas." What happened to the nice people out there, who you could offer $5 to without expectation? And last time I checked, gas was $4.06 a gallon. Nice guy. But still, I'm glad I got my phone back.