One lucky man!

Yesterday I was all prepared to be mad at my mom. But then, all of a sudden she walks into my house and announces that she just found a man's wallet in the street when she was on her way home from work. Yesterday was a windy day, and there's no telling how far the wallet had travled, not to mention that it was probably ran over by cars a couple of times. But when she walked up to it, it was laying wide open and some of the money was sticking out of the folded area.

We searched through the wallet, trying to find some phone number, so that we could contact him. There were appointment cards, pictures, a mexico ID, a "Permanent Residence" card, and LOTS of money. There were hundred dollar bills folded up and hidden through out the different areas. There were also two uncashed pay checks. But all we could find was one card with a phone number on it. So I called that number, and left a message. About 2 minutes later, a guy called but we couldn't understand each other because it sounded like he was out in the wind. So, we called him back, and kept trying, but it just wasn't working.

So I called the company who issued the pay checks to him, and told them that I was trying to locate one of their employees. Turns out, he lives and works down in Los Angeles, but he's a delivery driver and makes daily trips up to our military bases. Now of course they couldn't give out his personal information, but they asked if I wanted to send them the wallet. I was like "No, I'll mail it to him, but not to anyone else". So they took down my name and number, and within 10 minutes, a local phone number was calling my cell.

It was his sister, and she lives about a minute from me. His company called him, and he had her call me because he didn't speak very good english. So I talked to her on the phone for a good 10 minutes trying to figure this out because like I said, I wasn't going to hand the wallet over to anyone but him personally. There was over $1100 in cash in there, and we didn't want just anyone to get it. She was really nice, and we met her over at the local liquer store, across the street from where my mom found the wallet, to see if we could find anything that might have flown out of the wallet. Immediately, we found his driver's license and bank card. We also found a Kragen's card and what looked like a hotel room key. It's a good thing we went back over there.

So we were supposed to meet with him the following morning around 7am (today), but she called us back to ask if we could meet with him around 9 last night. He was on his way to LA when his company called him and told him that someone had found his wallet (he didn't even know it was gone yet), and he had to deliver the truck to his job, and then drive all the way back to Barstow (2 hour drive). But we agreed and met with him last night.

He was EXTREMELY grateful that he got his wallet back. Most people would never have returned it, let alone with so much money in it. He said that had he lost his wallet for good, he would have lost his job because he needs the ID's to get onto the bases he delivers on. The money inside was also his house payment. Not to mention, his green card, bank card, and other things were in there. The only thing he said was missing, was his insurance card (he must have looked right over it because my brother and I saw it in there). Now, whether some of the money in the fold that was partially hanging out had flown away, we don't know. But he still had a good chunk left ($1100 in cash and a couple hundred in uncashed checks). Poor guy, I would have been devestated with losing that much money. It may not be alot to some people, but for others, it's what they make in a paycheck.

So he tried to give my mom a reward...and we know that it was either $250 or $300 that he tried to give her. She refused it, and he said that he wants to take us all out for lunch sometime. I'm really proud of her, because she told him that she didn't give it back to him for a reward, that she did it because she would have wanted someone to do the same for her. See, this is the kind of woman that raised me. :) She has a lot of faults...but she is a good person when she chooses to be. We're just grateful that she's the one who found it about 30 minutes after he dropped it, instead of someone else who may have really screwed this guy over.