What the Hell?! Wednesday

I went to the Eden Prairie Center mall with my mom, my two sisters, my one-year-old nephew, and my twins to let the kids play at the cool little indoor toddler play area they have there. Before heading to the playground, we decided to have lunch in the food court. As I was walking from Little Tokyo restaurant to our table, I dropped my wallet. One of the cleaning people discovered my wallet laying a mere three feet from the table I was sitting at and called security. I walked over to her (all of three feet) and said, "That's my wallet. I just dropped it on the way to my table." Her response? "I'm sorry. You'll have to wait for security." Ummm.....okay. I could have told her my name. She could have looked at the driver's license and saw that it was my picture. I could have described in detail the contents of the wallet. There would have been no doubt whatsoever that the wallet was mine. However, not wanting to cause a stink of any sort, I said, "Oh. Okay. I'll wait." I sat back down to eat my lunch with my family while the woman from housekeeping stood guard over the wallet—-a mere three feet from where I was sitting.

Needless to say, it was a bit weird eating with this person standing right there guarding my wallet. Occasionally, I would look over to make sure the wallet was still there. She would flash a brief smile and continue her watch. The security guard, who was either coming from the complete opposite end of the mall or had stopped to have some lunch himself on the way, took an incredibly long time to arrive at the scene of the disturbance. As a matter of fact, we had pretty much finished our entire meal before the security guard arrived. And there the cleaning lady stood. Ever vigilant. Ever trustworthy. She did not even pick my wallet up off of the floor. She left is laying where it had fallen. Halfway popped open. Laying up on its side in what can only be described as an unnatural position. Evidence she had obviously been trained to leave alone—CSI style. She simply stood guard over it, as to not ruin possible fingerprint or DNA evidence, perhaps?

Eventually, I saw the security guard in his crisp white uniform approaching from the opposite end of the food court. He chatted briefly with the housekeeping woman who pointed in my direction. I rose from my seat, prepared to prove my identity to the security guard. I approached him and said, "Yes. That's my wallet. I dropped it." He smiled at me, extended his hand, and handed me my wallet. No questions asked. Not a word exchanged. The poor cleaning lady had stoically stood at her post—-watching my family and I devour our lunch and dutifully protecting my red faux-leather wallet from would-be thieves—-only to have the security guard hand it over to me willy-nilly.

What the hell?!