Dear Lucky Stars, Thanks. Love, Megs

Losing your camera and license in a cab is never a good idea, but it’s an especially terrible idea when you’re headed out of the country the next day. This is exactly what happened to me on my wedding night. After we were kicked out of our reception sight, the revelers from our party relocated to Foothills Brewery, and then eventually to Burke St Pizza. (Yes, wedding dress, bar sludge, pizza grease? Don’t know what I was thinking. Hey, you only wear it once, who cares what you get on it at 2 a.m.!) Somewhere in the midst of all this, I left a wristlet containing my driver’s license and camera in the backseat of a cab. Fortunately I did not have any credit cards – I guess I assumed the white dress would sort of be a “free pass” for having to pay for anything. (It was. NTS: wear more often?)

Just going for a stroll up Burke St.

The next day I frantically called around to the different cab companies. “Can you remember what cab you were in?” Um, no, they all sort of look the same from inside, BUT I’m willing to guess if you put out an APB to your cabbies and ask which one shuttled around the BRIDE last night, you’ll narrow it down to one or two. After three or four cab companies said no one could recall having an adorably sweet woman in a poufy white dress in their backseat, we gave up. My passport would suffice for my airport ID and my mom lent me her camera for our honeymoon. I wasn’t too frustrated about my ID, since I had to replace it upon returning anyway – new last name and all. And, although I was upset to lose my camera, to me the priceless part of a camera would be the pictures – so, considering I had paid someone to walk around shooting pictures of the last 10 hours of my day, I felt confident that those would be replaced. Mostly I was just mad at myself and embarrassed – I was sober after all, and who leaves things in cabs when they’re sober? I pride myself on being someone who rarely misplaces thing (one cell phone, ONE… I know Matt is going to remind me of this, so I might as well “out” myself)… so I was just super annoyed at myself for losing it. We took off the next morning for Greece , and while I had plenty of other things on my mind that week (Ancient ruins!! Jeep tours of volcanoes!! New husband!!!!!) in the back of my mind was the nagging annoyance at losing my stuff.

Judging from my happy expression, this might be right about the time I realized it was missing.

Our return trip was exhausting and after nearly 24 hours of travel, including connections from Venice to Frankfurt to Newark to Charlotte (oh my!), and then driving from Charlotte to Winston, we walked into our house at 2 a.m. There, sitting on the corner of my coffee table in full view, was MY CAMERA AND LICENSE. I literally fell to my knees in shock and gratitude and a little bit of delirium and just kept going “What the! What the!” Part of me thought it was a dream, and when I woke up the next day I had to check it was still there.

The next day when I checked my email I found out one of my sorority sisters (who I had no idea was even living in Winston) got in the cab RIGHT AFTER ME and found my wristlet. When she saw the ID inside was me, she decided to hold on to it rather than turn it into the “lost and found” of the cabbie . Thank you, thank you, thank you brilliant Chi O sister. The next day she promptly drove out to my house (conveniently listed on my ID) and delivered it to my other friend who was house-sitting, who left it on the coffee table for me to find when I returned. I could not believe my good fortune that someone I knew would get into a cab right after me! It was almost too good to be true. I still think about that day as one of the greatest “gifts” of good fortune I have ever received.

What is the luckiest things that has ever happened to you?