This afternoon the twins and I met the bigs at a playground near Hauptbahnhof. I always have such well intentioned plans. Dance isn’t until 2:50; the kids can have a little outside free time before class starts...
Sadly, this didn’t happen. Lee had thrown a huge fit about leaving the house that caused us to miss our train and be very late. We were so late meeting up with Thom and Vinnie, they couldn’t play at all, We started the walk to dance and five minutes in, Vinnie stopped and full of panic said, “I left my sporthalle bag at the playground!” Ugh. Only the twins and Vinnie take this modern dance and movement class so Thom volunteered to go back for the bag. I herded the littles the last five minutes to arrive at dance just three minutes tardy. I settled in--my mise en place for whatever I had planned for my favorite hour of the week. I love sitting in the library while the three littles are dancing and listening to beautiful music. Thom returned. I questioned him with a thumbs up sign. He shook his head. “It wasn’t on the bench where she left it. I looked everywhere.” Double ugh. I left my happy place at the library table to search for this GD bag. I walked over the blue bridge imagining finding it and anticipating the satisfying feeling of relief. I arrived at the playground, looked long and hard, walked in circles, scaled the mounds, but didn’t see it. Would someone actually take a kid’s bag with little gym shoes inside? I approached two moms and asked them if they had seen Vinnie’s bag. Neither of them had. One said she had just gotten there. Then, the other asked me what was inside the bag. “Just shoes and a water bottle.” “Do you know what kind of shoes?” “I think Adidas.” “A man found a bag with white shoes in them, and he said he was going to give it to the police.” I was pleased to have this information, but I couldn’t help but be annoyed. The bag was unsupervised for may fifteen minutes. Tops. It really needs to be turned into the police? I asked the woman if she knew where the police station was, but she wasn’t from Freiburg. She told me that she sees them go through the park quite often so I could just wait for one. Instead, I checked Google maps, and there was a “Polizeiposten” two minutes away. I was buzzed in. “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” “ein bisschen.” This literally means a little, but, in reality, it usually means they’re fluent. “My daughter left her Sporthalletasche at the playground, and I was told a man may have brought it here.” “What’s your daughter’s name?” “Lavinia Lord.” He grinned and repeated, "Lavinia." He left the room and returned holding the bag. Vinnie had written just her first name in the ID card and a creative spelling of Maria-Theresia. The police officer suggested a few more details be added. He also gave us the information of the gentleman that turned in the bag. “Maybe you can call him or write a postcard.” Maybe.
1 Comment
Abby
2/6/2018 05:46:30 pm
Wow! So many emotions reading this. I'm glad it had a happy ending!
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