Maine checking in with a college update.
Lance left yesterday at 6:40 am on his way to college in Oneonta, NY. From our house it is a 350 mile drive, all interstate though, but still, the longest drive he had ever made by himself. Around noon, he calls to say he is 40 miles from Oneonta and he thinks he lost his wallet at the rest area he had stopped at previously to buy a snack and a drink.
He says he has searched his car but can't find his wallet. He wants me to call the rest area and see if anyone has turned in his wallet. To call the rest area, he says, "Look it up on the Internet." He thinks (but can't remember) that the rest area was about "an hour ago" "near Albany" or "50 miles away."
It is impossible to look up rest areas on the Internet, I discovered. After discussing this, and getting my husband and the phone, we tell him to turn around and go back to the rest area to see if anyone has turned in his wallet.
He calls back a little after 2 pm. He is at the rest area, no sign of the wallet. It turns out the rest area is in Blandford, Massachusetts--by my reckoning, about 110 miles from where he had been. So much for "near Albany" and "50 miles away"! He asks at all the restaurants and leaves his name and number with the manager of the gas station. By this time he is feeling it is pretty hopeless. He gets back in the car and starts driving back to Oneonta...again.
A little while later, my husband calls with the name of a couple in Troy, NY. The husband is a truck driver and picked up Lance's wallet from the ground at the Blandford MA rest area. Lance and my father have the same name so when they called information, they got my dad's phone number (of course, Lance isn't in directory assistance!). Anyway, the wife was as nice as could be and was going to run out to the post office (it was 4:15 pm by now) to mail the wallet to Lance before the PO closed. I had his proper college mailing address which is how come I ended up on the phone.
Everything was intact in his wallet: Bank of America card, MY LL Bean Visa card, and few pictures, and $1. I didn't ask if a condom was in there. I had had enough excitement for one day. I didn't need any extra information.
So, in the end, all's well that ends well...and thank God for honest people in the world!
Leslie