Paying it Forward and Years Later I Got Payback

Africa is a tough continent. I wager it’s the toughest, and one of the toughest cities to live in, with rampant crime and gun shots, is Johannesburg. A comedian said one night that there is so much crime in Johannesburg that rather than count sheep to fall asleep, you count gun shots. I grew up there and twenty years ago something happened that at the time I thought little of until today, the 19th January 2022.

Sometimes things are just so weird and connected. I believe they are. Einstein spoke of ‘quantum entanglement.’ He called it ‘spooky action at a distance.’ I quote. ‘Quantum Entanglement is the weird phenomenon that the fates of two particles are linked to each other, even if they are separated by large distances.’

How about quantum entanglement across space and time? Because I did something twenty years ago and today that same thing was done for me.

Let me start by setting the scene.

I was at a company Christmas party in a crime infested Johannesburg and a number of us wanted to continue the festivities at a nearby nightclub.

Being quite ‘happy and festive’ thanks to some drinks and good food that we enjoyed, we decided to go dancing at a club.

We partied ourselves to a standstill and as I was leaving the nightclub; I saw a black wallet lying on the ground. I picked it up, and it had US Dollars and English Pounds in it, so I thought ‘lucky me.’ Then I saw the ID of an air hostess, her company ID. She worked for Virgin Airlines.

Suddenly the wallet had a face and a personality. I had to find this lady.

Was she the victim of a mugging? Had the mugger dropped her wallet? Was she kidnapped or murdered? Johannesburg is like any other large city, but with the added horror of extreme violence, thrown into the mix.

I remember an historian professor doing a lecture about Johannesburg and remarking. ‘I don’t know why everyone is so hung up about the crime rates? We have been killing each other for over 200 years. It’s just the media highlights it more nowadays.’

I held the wallet in my hand and contemplated the dilemma. I could take the money and dump the wallet, but my conscience was already at work. Even in my rather festive mood, my conscience is a taskmaster that brings sobriety to all circumstances, a moral sobriety that most of us have. Some try to suppress theirs, but mine is way too powerful. Like an overzealous primary school teacher, it is always pulling me back on track from my meandering wanderings.

I went home that night with the wallet and the next morning with a bit of a headache. I phoned the airline, who confirmed the lady worked for them, but gave me her parents' phone number in Wales. I phoned her parents, and they thought the worst, that she had been kidnapped or murdered.

They called me back once they had contacted her and told me what hotel she was staying at.

I took the wallet to her. The hotel she was staying at was about 25km or around 16miles away.

She was so happy to retrieve her wallet. It had sentimental value, and she said I could have all the cash inside it. I declined, just happy to help someone out, and the funny thing was she didn’t even know she had lost it. She only realised that she had lost it when her parents phoned her hotel, to tell her I had it.

It felt good to help someone out and I remember saying to her, ‘You see, not everyone in Joburg is a criminal.’

Fast forward twenty years and here I am living in Australia.

I am driving to work this morning and driving along an open road at about 100km an hour (62 miles an hour) I am about 6 kms (3.7miles) from home when a black and white object seems to hit my side window, black and white bits fly everywhere.

I think to myself that a magpie (black and white bird) had flown into my side window, but curiously there was no impact on the window, just what seemed to be black and white feathers everywhere. I thought nothing of it. I felt sorry for the probably deceased magpie and continued driving to work.

I got to work and then realised that I had left my wallet at home. My licence is in my wallet, so I am essentially driving illegally on the highways of Sydney!

I hope no police officers stop me on the way home from work. I don’t need my wallet to buy anything, so it should all be fine, except for the nervous drive home.

I get to work and I notice two missed calls from my wife, then I see she sent a text message while I was driving. The text states. ‘Darling, I have your wallet xx.’

I think ‘oh I must have left it on the kitchen counter,’ but when I called her, she tells me that a lady found my wallet and brought it to her. This lady lives in the next suburb.

I was completely confused. How did a strange lady have my wallet? Then I realised I had left my wallet on the roof of my car and driven off in a rush after packing my work bag and computer into my car.

The ‘magpie’ that made no impact on my side window was my black wallet and papers flying all over the show, as it fell from my roof.

The lady returned my wallet with all my money and credit cards and everything. She must have picked it all up and placed it back in my wallet. What an angel. I am very grateful to her. She has saved me money and time and the trouble of cancelling credit cards and getting a new licence, etc.

My wife offered to pay her, and offered her the cash in my wallet, but she said no thanks, and that the same thing had happened to her a few years back and someone had returned her wallet too without expecting payment, and she was ‘paying it forward.’

Just like the air hostess, twenty years prior, I too didn’t even know I had lost my wallet. I thought I had left it at home. I am sure if I had not returned that air hostess’s wallet those 20 years ago that I wouldn’t have received mine back today.

That’s my theory of ‘spooky action at a distance’ and I am sticking to it.

Wouldn't it have been really mind blowing if the lady that found my wallet was that same air hostess from twenty years before?

But then again maybe that would just be too spooky, cue the Twilight Zone music…