Life Lessons...

Life Lesson #1:

Never judge a book by it's cover.  

We all learn it when we're little, but how often do we actually follow the rule?  Today I was totally called out on judging the book by the cover.  

So Tom and I had to run errands today.  We started with Costco and ended a few hours later at the mall.  When we were walking through one of the stores Tom said, "I left my phone in my car." and I reminded him he had it at Costco.  So we retraced our steps for the next hour or so looking everywhere for the phone.  The last stop was Costo, he went inside to look for it and couldn't find it anywhere.  It hadn't been turned in either, we assumed it was somewhere in the store though.  

I called the phone probably 20 times in a 2 hour period and finally gave up for awhile.  I tried again a little while later and someone answered.  The guy could barely talk and what I could make out wasn't fun.  1- He was living on the Indian reservation.  2- He couldn't pronounce his words properly.  3- He couldn't figure out his address.  

So automatically I came to the conclusion that he was a drunk Indian who stole Tom's cell phone, couldn't figure out how to crack the password, and was sick of me calling so he answered it anyway.  

He struggled with the address, so I wrote down the directions he gave me and we went on our way to find the cell phone.   Turned out the road didn't exist, the one we thought it may be didn't go low enough with the numbers to actually make sense.  I tried calling the cell phone a few more times and he finally answered again.  I told him I couldn't find the house and passed the phone to Tom.  

Oh yeah, 

Last week I watched a show about Indian reservations in South Dakota where drinking is a huge problem along with rape and horrible abuse.  Something like 3 of 4 women are raped and/or beaten and they have nowhere to turn on the reservation because the men rule the place.  So of course I've fabricated this whole situation in my head how the guy with our phone is a huge dirt bag and he might stab Tom and then rape me in a drunken fit.  

So the guy tells Tom his wife will meet him at the gas station, and then has the nerve to ask if there will be a reward.  Tom agreed, but at the same time we were both so mad because he is the one who took the cell phone!  

The wife pulls up and this is where I had my rude awakening.  

She is a lady in her mid sixties, dressed in normal clothes, driving a normal car, and pretty clean cut.  She gets out of her car, cell phone in hand, and explains how sorry she is about the whole situation.  She had taken her mentally ill husband to Costco with her today where he picked up the cell phone without her knowledge.  The first time he answered she was out of the house and was unable to talk to us.  He told her about it, which is when she realized he had a strangers cell phone, and because it was password protected she couldn't figure out how to call us back.  Apparently he had a stroke awhile back and has not been all there since.  Tom tried to give her money for bringing the phone and she wouldn't accept it at all.  

I felt horrible afterwards.  It was a nice reminder to not be such a witch though.  I was so mad and just positive they were awful free loading humans, turns out I was the awful one in the situation.  We both drove home in silence, feeling bad for them, feeling like jerks, and reminded of that lovely saying that has been impressed in our brains since we were little..."Don't judge a book by it's cover."