Two Nice Guys With The Same Name

/ Ally Bean

My Zen-Den rented a car.  While either in the rental office or while driving the car, my Zen-Den’s black leather business card organizer wallet fell out of his computer bag.  He did not know that this had happened.

This wallet holds about 40 plastic cards that my Zen-Den uses at hotels & airlines & car rental kiosks when he travels for work.  Also, once upon a time my Zen-Den stuck a receipt for a car service visit in the back of this wallet.

[It would be at this point in the story that I could go off on a snarky tangent about paying attention to what’s going on around you… don’t adopt an absent-minded professor persona… zip the sides of you computer bag.  But I won’t.]

• • • 

Last Tuesday morning we received at the house an overnight package.  On it was the oddest address label.  The label said that Zen-Den in MI had sent Zen-Den in OH this package.  I figured that it was work related, so I didn’t open it.

[I could have opened the package immediately but:

  1. It wasn’t addressed to me, which technically means that I shouldn’t open it– like that’s ever stopped me before;  &
  2. I live in fear of anthrax dust because I’ve watched a gazillion times that NCIS episode where Tony gets the bubonic plague.  Hey, don’t judge.  It could happen.]

• • • 

When my Zen-Den came home from work I handed him the package.  He had no idea what was in it, so we both watched as he opened it.  And there was his black leather business card organizer wallet.

There wasn’t a note in the package with the wallet, so we had no idea how the other Zen-Den came to have my Zen-Den’s black leather business card organizer wallet.  There was only the address label with the other Zen-Den’s business address/phone number on it.

[Again, I could make a big issue of the fact that a stranger had information about my Z-D’s vehicle and license plate number and credit card, but that would make me sound churlish, so I won’t mention it here.]

• • • 

So the next day my Zen-Den phoned the other Zen-Den and they talked.  Come to find out someone at the car rental company had found the wallet.  When the car rental company went through their records, they found the other Zen-Den’s name/address & sent him my Zen-Den’s black leather business card organizer wallet.

The other Zen-Den knew that it wasn’t his, but he took the time to look through it where he discovered the car service receipt with our home address on it.  Then, because he was a nice older gentleman, he just mailed it to my Zen-Den.  No big deal.  Just did something nice.

My Zen-Den offered to reimburse the other Zen-Den for the cost of mailing, but the other Zen-Den said not to worry about it.  He had it covered.

And that, gentle readers, is how it came to be that my Zen-Den got his black leather business card organizer wallet back.  Amazing, huh?  Who’d have thought that there’d be two nice guys with the same name?  Just glad that there are.

21 thoughts on “Two Nice Guys With The Same Name”

  1. This is Hallmark Channel movie material. Of course we’ll have to enhance the story a bit – the MI Z-D will travel from MI in a horrific snowstorm where he was stranded on the road and had to eat his car seat to stay alive. He then picked up a hitchhiker who turns out to be a fugitive on the run who he befriends and helps prove the fugitive’s innocence. Eventually, MI Z-D arrives and we realize that he’s my long-lost older brother from a different mother. Then there is an earthquake because the Mayans really meant 2013, not 2012 (their “3’s” are hard to read). Gee, who should play me in the movie?

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    • It’s a really good story but I think our OH Z-D doesn’t have enough drama in the story and we’re left wondering why the business card case was so important. I was thinking that he was probably lost in the jungle near Teotihuacán and/or captured by ancient time traveling Mayans when I realized that of course the business card case contains secret codes which are needed to avert the Mayan Apocalypse! And I think Tommy Lee Jones ought to play OH Z-D.

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        • Well . . . the case is vital to my life because it has my expired TWA frequent flier card in it. Once they get back on track I can carry over those seventeen points I earned in 1986 and take Ally on that dream trip to French Lick, IN she has always wanted.

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            • Okay, I loved the whole story, but the comment thread here is laugh out loud worthy. When the Z-D Affair comes out, I will buy tickets. I can imagine the cinematography now. Long still shot on the card organizer. A car horn honks. The door slams. The lights go dark.
              Please get Hans Zimmer to do the music.

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              • Stephanie, what a perfect title for this film: The Zen-Den Affair. I think that you should be in charge of cinematography because you clearly have a vision here. And the music suggestion is wonderful. Undoubtedly this movie will win an Oscar or two.

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  2. Cool and heart warming, both at the same time. I have a story about meeting someone in Durham who lived in the north of Scotland, who was at that time the proud owner of two cats I’d had to have adopted when I lived in Cleveland, UK 8 years before. Amazing things happen, don’t they.

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    • Polly, really??! That’s amazing. Now there’s a Hallmark Channel movie if I ever heard of one. Just get Zen-Den to jazz up the story line and you’re good to go.

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      • I wish blogs had “like” buttons on, like Facebook, then I could just “like” your reply to my comment, instead of just “liking” it privately, or writing another comment, like this one. I think Z-D is just the person to jazz up my story.

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        • Polly, that’s a good idea. In WP you can like the whole post if you are already part of WP, but the ability for anyone to like each comment would make lots of sense. Smart thinking.

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  4. I love reading stories about the kindness of strangers. It gives me hope for the world. It also makes me realize that I should probably zip up my purse or I’m going to lose lots of stuff.

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