But Wait! There’s More! Car Crackpots, Pt 2

If you haven’t read the last post, go read that first and then come back to this one. Further story-telling is inside the post.

After talking to Denis about The Great Car Scratch Incident of ’07 I drove CootieGirl back to daycare, where she showed off her stickers (she got three – one for each shot). I then hopped back in the car and came home to get a quick shower before work. Once done, I picked up my purse and went out to the car. It was only when fishing through my wallet to get out my MP3 player that I realized my wallet was missing. I checked around the front and back seats and couldn’t find it, so I went back inside. I searched in every room I had been in upon returning from daycare and didn’t find it. So I called the pediatrician’s office. They hadn’t seen it. And yet, I know I had it at the appointment because I paid cash for the appointment and put the change back in that wallet (I actually use a coin purse as my wallet). So somewhere between paying for the appointment and leaving for work (a span of two hours) it went missing.

I had no choice. I had to go back to the parking lot of the pediatrician’s office. And so I drove back over there. And who was in the parking lot? Car Crackpot lady and a state trooper. A State trooper!!! She saw me pull in to the parking lot and pointed me out to the cop, who returned to his car. I parked and upon getting out I looked everywhere on the ground and didn’t see my wallet. She was sitting in her car at that point, and I saw her watching me through her open window, so I said, “I’ve lost my wallet – did you happen to see it here on the ground anywhere?” She got out of her car and said no, she hadn’t seen it, and she’d been there the whole time since I left. She began complaining about me leaving earlier and I said, “Look, I’ll go talk to the cop, but right now I am concerned about my lost wallet.”

I walked over to the cop and to make a long story short the state trooper said the car door thing was not a STATE matter, so he had called a COUNTY trooper who was on the way. That cop asked me a few questions about what had happened, and I very calmly told him that YES, my car door did hit her car, but NO I was positive that my car door did not make that scratch. He went to my car and checked my door and took some basic measurements of where the scratch would have matched up with my car. I continued to look for my wallet until that cop showed up. He finally did, he and the state trooper conversed privately for a few minutes and finally the state trooper left. The county trooper came back to me and the first question was, “Have you found your wallet?” I said no, and he asked me to go through the steps of when I knew I last had it and when I discovered it lost.

1) Paid for pediatrician
2) Argument about car door
3) Took daughter to daycare (purse stayed in locked car)
4) Home
5) Got ready for work
6) Left to go to work – discovered wallet was missing

He advised me to check with daycare and home one more time and if it is still missing to call the County Sherriff and fill out a missing property report so that if I need to to fight wrongful credit card charges before I can cancel the cards, I’ll have an official report about my wallet being missing or stolen.

He then addressed the car thing. “This is a civil matter – there’s not really anything the County can do in this situation. You two need to come to an agreement or swap insurance (although this was not a collision and cannot be treated as such).”

So I swapped insurance info with her, telling her that I was doubtful that my insurance would cover it for her. She shrugged and said, “Well, I’ve been out of work for six weeks due to a medical problem and I haven’t been out in six weeks except to today’s doctor appointment, so I know I didn’t have that scratch this morning.”

I felt like saying, “Then how did you get the scratch last week that you told me about earlier?” but I didn’t feel like getting into it again with her, especially since the cop was gone at that point.

I headed back home. I have SCOURED my house from top to bottom. No wallet. I have looked in every cranny in my car. No wallet. I went back to …

…

I’m stopping the story for a moment.

I just got a call from my HR lady at work. Someone found my wallet. Turned it in someplace. That place saw my insurance card and called my insurance company to tell them where my wallet was and could they contact me. My insurance company then called my office to contact me and spoke to HR about my missing wallet (since I wasn’t there). My HR lady then called me to tell me what phone number to call about getting my wallet.

Here’s the REALLY weird part. The place where my wallet was turned in? I’ve never been there. It’s on the main road that my subdivision is off of. Somehow my wallet ended up at some totally random location. I called the number and the person’s name I was given is legitimate, but the woman was out to lunch. I spoke with the receptionist and she’s going to try either find the woman and have her call me, or will call back herself to let me know she has the wallet and I can come get it anytime.

I’ll say this much – if my cash is still in there (there wasn’t much – maybe $30 total), then it’s a TRUE MIRACLE that I got that wallet back when I have no idea how it got there. A true God-sent miracle. If the cash is gone, then someone took the cash and tossed the wallet, not caring about the rest of the stuff that was in there.

*later*

I got a call from the receptionist. The woman whose name I had been given is gone for the day, but she was actually just helping the co-worker who actually found my wallet. The receptionist confirmed that it was found on the side of the road. The co-worker is out of the office right now but as soon as he is back the receptionist will call me to have me go pick it up.

What a day people. What a day. I’m not leaving this house until I can have my wallet back because who KNOWS what will happen if I try and do something else today.