| ||
Wednesday, June 8, 2005 | ||
What do you think of this story? | Lost and FoundPart 2 of 2By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE But thats not the end of the story. Well, of that story, yes, but see if you dont agree theres a sort of mystic link between the loss of a coin purse in Alabama and one a few days later at Waffle House #777 on Georgia Hwy. 74 South in Peachtree City. No, I didnt lose anything this time. Dave and I were there for our usual Wednesday morning hash-browns-and-breakfast-sandwich fix. Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Sallie, Liz Stargell cries out when we come in. She waits on the booths at the far end; Dave prefers the low counter, so we sit where Terri Garner works. That way I dont have to remember what to order. Terri does it for me. We didnt pay much attention as a middle-aged couple and an older woman got up from a table behind us and walked slowly to the cash register. As they paid their bill and stepped aside, the next diners were discovering they had a problem. They were a young couple, probably in their 20s, nice-looking, both of them with long, jet-black hair. Apparently they had only about $2 in cash between them and had planned to use a credit card to settle the bill. Waffle House doesnt do plastic. They looked at each other, stunned, embarrassed. But before anyone else had grasped the situation, the man at the door gave the young man a five-dollar bill. His face remained expressionless as he passed the five to his girl friend, who gave it and the two ones to Terri. I watched them exit to the parking lot, wishing they had said Thank you, and I think I got my wish when they waved to the older family already pulling out. I turned back to my hash-browns when Terri erupted in excitement. That couple with the older woman, are they still here? and she rushed to the door carrying a tan pocketbook. She left her purse in that booth! She returned, with the bag. The car was gone. Terri called Liz to help, and began looking for identification. She picked out a wallet with her fingertips, so averse to rummaging in this most personal of possessions, she could hardly bear to touch it. At last. A drivers license. But not from Georgia. Acting solely on instinct, or because she had nothing else to go on, Terri looked up a matching surname in the Fayette County phone book, and found several, one of which looked promising. The WH phone was, as usual, being used in the office, and while she waited impatiently, our blonde dynamo fretted about identity theft and how worried the woman must be and how lucky she was that the bag had not been found by someone with a less sterling character. (This was not braggadocio on Terris part. Weve known her and her chum Liz at least a dozen years, and shes about as forthright as they come. Theyre both just good, hard-working folks.) She dialed as soon as she could and left a message on the answering machine: If you or your mother, at least I guess she was your mother, if youre the ones who left a purse at the Waffle House in Peachtree City, we have it and well have it locked up in the back for you. Call me here at 770-xxx-xxxx until 2:30, or after that at my home, 770-xyz-xxxx. I called her myself later in the afternoon. Yes, the pocketbooks owner had retrieved her valuables and was very grateful to know there are still honest people in the world. Did she check to be sure everything was still in it? I asked, remembering an earlier incident when I felt self-conscious about checking my own found coin purse. It seemed accusatory, somehow, an implication that it had been ransacked. No, replied my friend in wonderment. Its like she trusted me not to steal from her. Some might call it payback, a sort of karma rewarding the kindness shown to the young black couple. I'd just say that what was lost had now been found. | |
Copyright 2004-Fayette Publishing, Inc. |