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and other Czech Encounters
09/20/2007
Adventures at Tesco
“Hurry,
we don’t have much time, give me the key!”
The hero says to the sidekick, and the guy quickly throws it to the
hero. Thus, they save the day. At these movies, I smile because if it had
been me, I would have searched my pockets.
“Sorry, don’t have it. Wait here,
while I go to the car and see if I left it there.”
In my life, I have given my mother and father grey
hairs, caused high blood pressure in room mates and friends as I’ve trashed
bed, dorm, hotel, and hostel rooms as I frantically searched my pockets,
backpack, suitcase, and surfboard bag for items too numerous to mention.
So, when you lose something in your native country,
it’s annoying. When it happens in a foreign country, you realize it would be
easier finding the Holy Grail. On
Sunday, just as I was going out the door to Reena’s
house to barbecue burgers, I couldn't find my wallet and efficiently tore apart
my bedroom, both desks, 2 dressers, bathroom, hall closet, sofa, cupboards, and
refrigerator. I can move very fast in 25 minutes.
At noon, I gave up. Obviously, I was looking too hard,
and I couldn’t see it. So I risked
riding the tram over to Reena’s (two stops) Czechs call riding
without a ticket: travelling as a black passenger. Hopefully I would find it later.
5 pm: I returned to my apartment, rested, relaxed and
full. I proceeded to (again) search my
apartment. I checked everything
including my bed, ripped all my clothes out and repacked them into my dressers,
the carpets, waste paper baskets, my three book shelves, my freezer (silly I
know) my bath tub (even sillier) and behind all the doors. I had learned three
things:
1) All
the sofa cushions connect into one huge piece rather than several smaller ones.
2) All my
missing dress socks were in the closet (and not stolen as I previously thought).
3) The
wallet was not in the apartment.
If it was not in my apartment, Logic asked, where did
you last see it? I replayed the last 24
hours in my mind. My wallet was sitting on
the counter at Tesco. Dam.
At 6pm, I changed my clothes, grabbed a book and
headed to Tesco. Located on
At Tesco, I went to the basement supermarket and asked
a cute brunette cashier (because beautiful people usually know important stuff). She shook her head. "Sorry, we don't have a lost and found." Luckily, I located Gabor, my check out
cashier from the day before. I
approached him.
"Byl jsem
tady včera, na Sobatu. Myslim, zaponmenl moje penezenku tady," I stuttered
a little. Gabor looked confused. So, I showed him Romana’s
text on my cell phone.
Then he went into a long explanation about where lost
and found was. But I didn’t understand why I had to go outside. I thanked him and left. Upstairs, I interrupted a teenage girl from
some very important text messaging. "Nevim. Ask her." She pointed at a taller girl working the
alcohol and cigarettes counter.
So, I repeated the question. Smiling, she spoke perfect broken
English. “Three floors
up, 2nd floor.”
I sighed I was on the ground floor.
First, I went to the second floor and repeated my
story to some cashiers. An older woman
and teenage girl shook their heads. "Sorry,
we don’t have a lost and found," and then they started arguing over how
crappy it was to work there. Then, I got
lucky on the 4th floor as I found the information counter. A young girl with glasses drew a map to lost
and found. 'Go past pizzeria, outside,
past the flower stand and go into the employee entrance.' She wished me luck.
At the employee entrance, I repeated my tale of woe
for the 7th time to a security guard. After I finished, he asked, “What's your name?”
"Tim Burdick"
"What ?"
"Timothy Burdick from
He whispered it to a colleague. 4 minutes later. “What’s his name?” a voice
asked from the back.
“T I M
O T H Y B U R D I C K . " I spelled it again phonetically in
“Oh yea, I have it.”
He returned a few minutes later with my wallet.
200 kc missing but all my cards,
driver’s license were still there. Yes!
I signed a
form and went home with my wallet.
PS---As I was telling Reena about writing this episode, she said, “Tim,
you have to remind people that it only could be you. You have a guardian angel. Anyone else who loses a wallet would never
see it again. Look at me. At my gym, I leave behind old running sneakers. Gone. Sweaty t-shirt. Gone. You-You are charmed."
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