Pay it forward

Moving to New York hasn't been easy on John. Sometime late this year, he became convinced that everyone in the city was out to rip you off.

You could see how he might feel that way. He'd go from Food Emporium charging him like $6 for a mushroom (prices are high here but not *that* high), to the Door Store saying we still owed for our bookcases even though our receipt said paid in full, to 2 Lincoln saying we never paid security deposit. He had to get a copy of the cancelled cashier's check to show we had, amidst rumors Nick had been fired and $400k was missing.

We watched some of the Ric Burns History of New York, and John latched on to the idea that the city is founded on ripoffs and greed. Remember that story of buying Manhattan from the Native Americans for some cloth and beads? The first big real estate ripoff on the island, but surely not the last.

It was becoming something of a mantra -- New Yorkers are all out to screw you -- and I think New York was getting offended.

Saturday night, she decided to show him otherwise.

We were in a cab, headed to a Christmas party, when John paid the cabbie, scooped up some Christmas cards to drop in the mailbox, a gift bag with some wine, and got out of the cab. We walked into a restaurant not a half block away when John realized his wallet was gone.

John is a master of many details. He balances our checkbook without a calculator, he makes sure we never run out of stamps, and that our dry cleaning is always picked up. Without him, the household would swirl into chaos because he is infinitely better at such things than I am.

One exception to that rule is maintaining control of material possessions. He leaves behind an umbrella or hat or backpack not infrequently, and he often thinks he's lost his cell phone, only to find he put it in a different pocket. At first, I assumed this was such an event -- he'd put his wallet in a different pocket, or dropped it in the wine bag, or set it on the bar. He'd find it.

After numerous pat downs, I realized this was not a drill. He'd really lost his wallet in Manhattan on a Saturday during peak tourist season.

John lost his wallet once in Detroit while we were dating and opportunists wasted no time before using his credit card. I assumed this time that the cash he'd gotten out of the ATM five minutes earlier was a goner and worried the credit cards would be next. I was sick to my stomach thinking of our credit card sprinting toward www.shipmesomesuperexpensivestuff.com, and of the possibility for opening new accounts, given access to his driver's license and such.

We spent maybe an hour working our respective cell phones to call the Taxi Commission to put in a lost and found claim, Equifax to put a fraud alert on his account, our credit card company to put a hold on, our bank to cancel our ATM card. John spent maybe 20 of those minutes just trying to cancel one credit card. That's frustrating under ordinary circumstances but when you're stressed? Nearly unbearable.

Once the calls were done and there was little else we could do, we had a decision to make. Go home defeated, or make the best of the night. Years ago, we were driving west to Muskegon for a long weekend when our car died on the highway halfway there. Instead of giving up a weekend we'd been looking forward to, we simultaneously arranged to have the car towed back to Ann Arbor and rented a car to continue our journey. Total time lost: about an hour. We arrived in Muskegon a little frustrated and a lot hungry, and we had a fantastic meal to celebrate our triumph. I conjured up memories of that Muskegon victory and said we should go out for the fun dinner we wanted before the wallet fiasco.

We were just deciding where to go when John's phone rang. He couldn't get to it fast enough and he missed the call. Caller ID said it was a New York number he didn't know. He paced waiting for the voice mail message to come on. It did.

Allison found his wallet. John's driver's license still has our Michigan address, but she riffled through until she found his business cards with a New York number and she called.

We hopped in a cab and headed across the island and south to the Mexican restaurant where she was out with her sister -- her sister had told her to just leave the wallet in the cab, by the way, but Allison had a stranger recently return her wallet so she had to do the right thing.

Not only did we get his wallet back, every dollar still in it, but the restaurant looked great. We decided to celebrate the turn of events with one of the best meals I've had in the city. And by giving Allison money to buy a round of drinks for her table.

Reinvigorated by this obvious demonstration that some New Yorkers are kind and helpful and honest, we continued on to the party. We were about three hours late, but it was a crowd that was still going strong when we left at 2 a.m. so I don't think it was too rude.

After a long, arduous trip back from Jersey City in the middle of the night, John made a big show about doublechecking the seat of the cab when we got out, not wanting to forget anything this time.

Would you believe he found someone else's wallet?

The college kid who had the cab right before us dropped his wallet, so John has a chance to return the favor to New York. He can show her that he gets it. Not everyone here is looking to rip everyone else off. Allison didn't rip us off, like the guy who found her wallet didn't rip her off, and we didn't rip Andre off.

And that, my friends, is how karma works.