That Sinking Feeling

About six weeks ago, a friend of mine and his family was flying to Europe. As he neared the airport he had a horrible sinking feeling as he realized his wallet and passport was at home. He dropped of the wife and two kids and headed home. He knew he was going to miss the flight but arranged for the airline to get him on the next flight with the hope of connecting with his family at the airport from which they would go to Europe. He got on the next flight, but it would only give him less than fifteen minutes to make his connection, which he did make thanks to airline attendants and passengers who allowed him to be the first off.

Tuesday I had a flight to Atlanta. I grabbed my luggage and kissed Evie goodbye. As she is pulling out I reached for my wallet….and the sinking feeling hit. I immediately called Evie…her cell was off. My initial thought was to get a cab, go home get the wallet….but Evie was driving my car and had my house keys. I called Jonathan and left a message for him to call me when he got off work (he does a split shift) and I called Evie’s work left a message for her to call me when she got to the office.

When Evie received the message that I had an emergency, she knew what happened. She drove home, got my wallet and got back to the airport 8 minutes after my flight left. After paying $50 a change of flight fee, I caught the flight an hour later (fortunately there is flight to Atlanta every hour) and made my meeting with 5 minutes to spare.

Will I forget my wallet again….not likely. I am sure that every time I am walking out the door, whoever in the family is driving me to the airport will ask as I walk out the door for me to do a wallet check.