Lost and Found – Part II

It was supposed to be just another cash-draw from the ATM machine near my house. But it wasn’t.

I had drawn some money from the ATM and started walking towards the departmental store from where I had to buy some 15 odd different types of stuffs like – butter paper for book covering, zipped plastic pouches, Colgate Total paste, dustbin bag, etc.etc. As I was walking, I could hear ‘some lady’ was calling ‘some another lady’ saying “excuse me ma’m”. I was sure that no one was calling me as hardly anyone knows me here. But after some seconds when I turned around I was surprised to found out that the ‘some another lady’ was none other than me and the ‘some lady’ was calling me on her top of her voice while waving my debit card in her hand. I stopped and the lady came and gave me my debit card saying ‘Is it yours ? You forgot it in the ATM’. I was speechless, scared, relieved and hugely annoyed on myself, all at the same time.


I thanked that lady and accepted the card. Next few minutes I was cursing myself for doing such a big blunder. I was also shocked thinking how I could do that! It’s been more than five years I have been using debit cards and this was the first time I did something like that. I always used to think how I would face the day when I would forget my debit card in the ATM machine. I used to think that I would do that if I ever go through extreme and unbearable mental tension. But ironically, though I have already passed through extreme and unbearable mental tension, I never did something like that then! Compared to that time, I am quite easy and relaxed now. I even dug up my thoughts as what I was thinking at that specific moment but that also turned out to be my regular thoughts on my brother’s wedding plans, my poor bank balance, what to wear the next day at office and about two characters of the novel I am reading (to be precise, about Spikes and Kirin from the novel The Unwaba Revelation by Samit Basu).

I kept on thinking for few moments while doing the shopping in the departmental store (Thankfully I had made up a list of what all I had to buy or else I would have come back not buying more than half things!!) and then came up with a considerably logical explanation to my disastrous activity. It’s so that, I generally draw money from the ATM in my office which is of ‘swipe’ type where I get back the card immediately after swiping it. But the ATM near my house is an ‘insert’ type and which swallows the card during processing the transaction and gives back at the end. Might be my continuous use of ‘swipe’ type made me to forget to collect the card at the end while using an ‘insert’ type ATM. But having said that also, I believe that this is no excuse for what I have done.