Carelessness Can Be Contagious

If I did not stop by on the highway for a breather at Rawang rest area, I would not have discovered that I have left my wallet back in Ipoh, about hundred over kilometres away. All important documents such as my identity card, driving license and bank cards were left behind. To my utter dismay, I did not have a single cent with me! You guess is as good as mine: what was I to do?

At that moment of time, I thought God has played a joke on me or something. I remembered vividly that I have put my wallet safely into my pocket and no way would it slip out… And at that moment, I was frantically searching my car, my luggage and bags, hoping that miracles would happen. Well, miracles did not really happen the way I have wanted it to.

I was between the devil and the deep blue sea: I was at my wit’s end because I could not make a U-turn back to Ipoh which was about a hundred kilometres away; neither could I continue my journey because I would not have money to pay the toll! I was literally stranded in the middle of nowhere.

It paid off to remain cool, calm and confident. There is a saying that if the problem can be solved with money, it is not really a problem. To some extent, the theory proved to be right at that miserable time and space. I managed to get a friend to meet me up at the Restoran Jejantas rest area. Generously, he handed me MYR 200 so that I could survive the week until I managed to retrieve my wallet and my bank cards. At the Burger King restaurant, we celebrated our friendship and my misfortune.

On Saturday of that same week, the very friend that rescued me from “temporal damnation” called me up grumbling that he has missed his flight to Sibu. He mistook the arrival time at Sibu as the departure time from Kuala Lumpur!

And my friend jokingly blamed me for having infected him with my virus. The virus was not deadly but costly. We laughed at our stupid mistakes.

And yes, carelessness can be contagious.

P/S: After the incident, when I looked back at what has actually taken place, I was amazed at my being at peace despite things have gone terribly and unexpectedly wrong. The little trust that was with me assuring things would be under control kept me sane. If that was not a miracle or God’s Providence, I did not know how to term it.

(Guilin, China)