May 13, 2008 By James Pletcher Jr. 4 min read

I’ve only done it once in my five decades plus life on this planet. Losing things is common. My wife constantly loses her keys, her purse, her shoes. Well, lost really isn’t the correct description. Misplaced is more like it. And, like all things physical, eventually what she has “lost’ turns up.

But it can be very disconcerting to lose something as important as a purse or wallet.

Case in point. One of our traveling ministers recently visited our place of worship, offering spiritual encouragement, guidance and suggestions on ways to better complete our mission of preaching.

Always on the lookout for ideas to develop into a column, I usually ask his wife if anything out of the ordinary has happened recently to either of them.

She’s given me some real gems, one in particular about the time she inadvertently used a can of spray furniture polish instead of starch when ironing one of her husband’s shirts.

On this visit, however, her story was about something that happened to her husband.

He lost his wallet.

Some people might say that’s not all that bad. However, men know that to lose a wallet is like losing your identity. We keep all our important stuff in that folded leather container: our Social Security card, driver’s license, credit card, etc.

The money it contains is replaceable. The other stuff isn’t. To lose that much personal data is traumatic.

So, when our friend discovered his wallet was missing, he became extremely distressed.

“We looked everywhere,’ his wife said.

He worried that if not found, he’d have to contact the credit card company and other firms to let them know his documents were lost.

First came a thorough search of their apartment, including reaching into pockets of clothing to make sure it hadn’t been tucked away in another piece of apparel. No wallet.

Then, he began to retrace his steps. He thought he might have left it at the gasoline station. He called but no one there had seen it.

He also had stopped at a large retail store. He called there but was told someone would call him back. His wife had to sit by the phone while he was occupied. The result: the wallet wasn’t at the retail store.

Getting even more anxious, they did another sweep of their home. This time, after a more vigilant search, he found it in the bathroom where it had apparently dropped out of his pocket and slipped behind a cabinet.

The discovery immediately calmed and comforted him, the anxiety vanishing like a puff of smoke.

I have forgotten my own wallet on fewer occasions than there are fingers on one hand.

And, I only lost it one time. I was in my senior year of high school. I stopped at a local mom and pop store to buy a few things. Too young to have credit cards (and in those days bank cards and ATMs were just a figment of someone’s imagination), the wallet was important because it contained tickets to my senior prom and the cash I was going to use to pay for my girlfriend’s flowers.

I had visions of my perfect prom night flowing down the drain.

Rattled when the loss was exposed, I, too, retraced my steps. Fortunately, it was a time when people were habitually honest. Arriving back at the store where I had made my purchases, I was greeted by a cashier who, as soon as she saw me, held up my precious billfold, complete with cash and prom tickets.

As my late father said to me many times when I did something dumb, “I bet you won’t do that again.’

And I never did.

Have a good day.

James Pletcher Jr. is Herald-Standard business editor. Reach him at 724-439-7571 or by e-mail at jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.