Lost and Found, Soaking Wet

I had a hell of a morning. First off, in case you're not from around here, the northern Illinois area was hit really hards early this morning by some massive thunderstorms, which resulted in terrible flooding all over Rockford and the surrounding cities. My home town, which is to the South, wasn't hit nearly as hard. The town I work in, however, was nailed.

At about 3:00am, the Chrysler plant, which the company just spent about $400 million to refurbish, was leaking water all inside through the roof. The assembly area was completely shut down at about 3:30, and I have no idea what time they started up again. As a result, we were sent home around 5:15. I left the gate, ran to my truck, and drove home. As I got out of my truck at home, I realized that my wallet was not in my pocket. My ID badge is in my wallet, so in order to even get out of the gates, I had to have it with me. I frantically began searching my truck, the ground outside the truck, and in every pocket, but to no avail. I decided I must have dropped it in my haste to reach the shelter of my truck through the driving rain. Panicked, I called the security booth at work, asking them to drive to the lot and look for it. Unfortunately for me, their security vehicle was stuck in waist deep water. I decided I'd have drive the 20 minutes back to work, and look for myself. I got back to the plant, searched the lot, but found nothing.

At this point I really started to panic. I was going through my mental inventory of all my credit cards, debit cards, and personal info that I'd have to try to protect, preparing to make the appropriate calls. I was going to take the back roads home instead of the highway, but was blocked almost immediately by some fast moving water across the road. I turned around, and decided I'd call security and leave them my phone number hoping that someone actually would return my wallet. Lo and behold, someone had just turned in a brown wallet. It was mine! I raced to the security shack and retrieved my soaked, sodden wallet. It was completely destroyed, but everything was there, including all my cards and the $9 in cash.

The end result of all this was obviously happy, but since I had to go all the way back to work, I then got stuck in a major traffic jam leaving the plant. It took me well over an hour to get home. I don't know who it was that returned my wallet, but I'll be eternally grateful. This could've been a disaster.