It’s been a funny old week. There is enough bad news on TV to keep us going for years. (When has it been any different lately?) But now and again something happens that gives you reason to forget all of that and just smile.

My faith in human nature has been restored – if only temporarily. As you get older your faith in humanity definitely takes a tumble. I don’t care how optimistic you are. Call it old(er) age; call it experience. But occasionally things like this happen that just give you hope. OK that’s a bit of a grumpy old dad type of thing to say, I know. But keep reading to the end…

Lost & Found

Dani went to the local shopping centre with his mates after school on Friday. It’s one of those end of week rituals kids get into. Invariably they’ll go for a nourishing burger at McDonalds (sarc.) or a super-value for money drink at Starbucks (extra sarc.).

This particular time they headed for the food court where Dani decided to take out his wallet and then have one of those foggy memory moments. For some unknown reason he put it down – he could not remember where of course – only to realise that he had lost it a few minutes later.

When he returned home his mum asked him why he hadn’t gone to the information desk in the shopping centre. After much discussion she went back to the shopping centre with him. Sure enough someone had handed in Dani’s wallet to the nearest manned information/help point – which in this case was the other side of the shopping centre.

The wallet contained some money (good old fashioned cash), one of those kids debit cards (yeah, more about those in a later post I think) plus Dani’s Real Madrid membership card. Nothing had been taken. A big thanks to the anonymous person out there who was kind enough to do the right thing.

Incidentally Dani had the good sense to call his mum and report what had happened once he realised his wallet was gone. At least that gave her the chance to cancel his debit card.

Footnote

I don’t want anyone reading this to take it the wrong way. I know the majority of people are good and honest. It’s not that there aren’t enough people with good intentions. There are. Plenty. Almost certainly the overwhelming majority. It’s just that the not so good minority are there and they are increasing. More than that they are the type who would not hand in someone’s lost property. I know that is hard to take as no doubt all of you reading this would hand in a purse or wallet if you found one. I know I would.

It’s easy to look at things from the ‘glass is half empty’ viewpoint. When in fact the glass is probably more like almost full! But it is still gives me a really nice feeling when this kind of thing happens.

This little drama had a happy ending but could easily have been the other way around.

Now. To teach that kid to take more care with his property… An ongoing battle…