It’s amazing how much of our lives are tied up in what we carry around with us, as I discovered when I lost my shoulder bag on Sunday.
Fortunately it was found and returned to me but not before as a precautionary measure I’d cancelled my bank cards, had my mobile provider block the phone, had the house locks changed, and contacted DVLA for a new licence, as well as having to borrow an asthma inhaler.
My momentary lapse of concentration proved time consuming, mentally draining and expensive.
And it could’ve been worse given the advice that my car might be at risk since my driving licence with my address was in the bag along with one set of car keys and my house keys.
It was suggested that I should get new car keys and the entry system redone, potentially costing several hundred pounds.
I’d also stupidly left passwords for various things in my wallet.
‘Naturally, I panicked’
After contacting the police, phoning traffic wardens to see if it had been handed in and returning to where I thought I might have left it, it was an appeal on my social media account which finally solved the mystery.
How it went missing is still hazy to me, but after the 11 o’clock mass in the city centre it looks like in preparing for my scooter ride home, between taking the security chain off and putting the helmet and waterproof jacket on, I’d momentarily laid the bag on the pavement.
Then, having got caught up in conversation about football with a few lads across South Tay Street, I’d blissfully driven my Vespa away leaving my man bag on the pavement.
As soon as I got home I realised my wallet, phone, house keys, car keys, inhaler and other daily accoutrements of life were missing.
In such moments the key thing is not to panic – so naturally I panicked.
Fortunately my family kept cooler heads than me as I frantically tried to recall my movements and what might have happened to the missing bag.
Apart from the frustrations of negotiating bank websites while my frazzled mind was still trying to process my exact movements, all the folk I contacted were unfailingly helpful.
All I could do was wait on hopeful news.
I had resisted asking for any information on social media, in case it alerted anyone who’d picked up the bag without good intentions, until I had tackled the issues of cancelling cards, changing locks and passwords.
I returned to where I thought I’d laid the bag down in town and enquired at local businesses with CCTV outside their buildings, and even took my Skoda and parked it elsewhere just in case a thief arrived in the night and nicked it.
‘A bloke from Kirkton wearing a man bag?’
Finally after a few hours I issued an appeal on X, only to get some good natured ribbing from folk wondering if I’d left the bag in the confessional, and why a bloke brought up in Kirkton was wearing a man bag.
In the event it wasn’t the famous GK Chesterton character and TV sleuth Father Brown who came to the rescue, but a trio of intrepid local priests.
Canon Kevin Golden who took morning mass had been trying to track me down.
Monsignor Ken McCaffrey from St Peter and Paul’s alerted me on X that the bag was in the possession of Father Jim Walls who was taking the 6 o’clock mass at the cathedral, and after a swift journey into town I was re-united with the lost bag which some kind soul had handed in.
My Hail Mary’s were answered – there are good honest folk out there.
Conversation