Some good news in this sometimes harsh world

In the chaos of the galeforce wind last week, He Who Can Fix Anything lost his cellphone when it fell out of the car as he chased papers. Major irritation with lost contacts, etc. So he gets a new phone and today it is stolen out of his car while he is in a shop in Woodstock. He should have known better, but we won't go there. He immediately phoned me to tell me to block the phone so it would be useless to the thief.

I phoned the cellphone company who wanted to know the number and I had to look it up on my phone - I haven't figured out "hold" yet! And then I thought, why don't I just phone the number and see who answers? So I did, and a young boy answered. I asked him where he got that phone and he said he saw a man fiddling in a white van and asked him what he was doing and the man said he worked for the person who owned the car. Anyway, it was a little difficult to get the full story due to the Capie accent, but it appeared that this little boy and his two friends and dog (who barked incessantly in the background) had disturbed the thief who dropped everything (cellphone, other keys that were in the car and wallet with credit cards and driver's licence) somehow and they had picked them up and thrown the keys back through the open door and had then carried on walking with the cellphone and purse. I presume as they were young boys they hadn't made any sort of decision on what to do next. He said he would go back to the shop where the van had been parked, a block or so away. I then phoned the number on my cellphone (thank goodness for caller ID!) and got the owner of the shop where HWCFA had been and asked him to go outside and look for the three boys and a dog, which he willingly did.

Ten minutes later, I called the shopowner again and he confirmed that he had the goods and three little hopeful faces, so I asked him to reward them suitably and we would be back tomorrow to collect the valuables.

Well, HWCFA didn't believe me when I told him I had sorted it all out. O ye of little faith, cried I! If you try to only think the best of people, rather than anticipating what they will do wrong, you might end up being quite surprised. I certainly hope he has learned something.

Life has many paths, and which one you take depends entirely on your thoughts. So make them the right ones - it worked today. It can work again tomorrow.