Irreplaceable

Two Fridays ago, I woke up late. I laid in bed and debated about getting up. It was the last week of the unit, but I didn't want to go to school.

You're going to have to go over the lecture at some point today anyhow. Start your day right and go to school! said the angel on my right shoulder.

But you know the lecturers are terrible...and you can get all the information just by reading the syllabus, said the devil on my left.

Back and forth it went until I realized it was 7:40AM and I jumped out of bed, rushed to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, ran a comb through my hair, and was on my way to school by 7:45.

I walked pretty quickly, running across crowded intersections and red lights.

I got to school on time. Early in fact.

So early, I debated going to Starbucks for a morning coffee. I did, afterall, put my wallet in my bag today. But in the end, I couldn't justify spending five dollars on just a drink, so I stayed in my seat and waited.

The professor came late. Thirty minutes late. But the lecture was decent, so I was glad I had gotten up that morning.

The second lecturer was a mess. All over the place, with nothing to say. And so, frustrated with the education I was getting in class, I headed to the library at 10 to read up on the information on my own.

At 10:37am, I got an email from my bank.

There has been some irregular activity on your bank card. Please sign in to review this activity, and give us a call immediately at 1-877-OMG-WHAT.

So I signed in to my bank account, and apparently I had ordered some food from McDonalds and got the coffee I was craving from Starbucks at 10:16AM and 10:22AM respectively.

Except, my butt was firmly glued to the cubicle chair that entire time.

I must have left my check card at the grocery store by accident. And someone must have found it today and started having a field day. Frantically, I grabbed my backpack and started looking for my wallet that I knew I had put in my bag earlier that morning. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't there.

I started calling friends (who were still in class), texting them to ask if my wallet had fallen out during class, or if they remembered if I had left my wallet at their apartment after our study party the other night - even though I knew the answer was no. Because I distinctively remembered putting my wallet in my bag that morning. I had thrown my folders and computer into my bag, then in went the wallet (along with dreams of Chipotle for lunch), with my computer battery on top of it, along with my scarf and mittens.

Alarmed, I called my bank back and told them to cancel my account. And then I called all my other credit card companies and told them to do the same. (P.S. Nordstrom Bank has the nicest customer service of them all, by far.)

Then, on a friend's tip, I headed to the university police station to file a police report. And that's when I realized that I had stupidly put my social security card in my wallet. Right underneath my ID card*, right there with all of my identifying information. My birth date. My address. My weight and height.

Because really, if it were just my ID card, the cash, and the credit cards, it's not that big of a deal. Those things can be replaced. But my social security number can't.

I'm positive that my wallet probably fell out during my morning commute. There was a lot of running around and jostling. Never mind that my scarf and mittens and computer battery were in the exact places I had left them.

I don't know why I was in so much disbelief that someone would just find a wallet and proceed to use it, instead of turning it in. Because, in my head, in my perfect, idealistic world, turning it in would be the right thing to do. And weren't we all taught to do the right thing? To be a good person? To listen to our individual Jiminy Crickets?

Please don't use my social security number. Please please please please. I have too many loans to deal with a bad credit number.



* Yes, I meant ID card, not driver's license. Because, fun fact! I have never driven a car in my life. I never even got the permit. Mass transit all the way, baby. That and really nice friends with cars.