We're Feeling a Little Sheepish ...

By Paul Buckley

Life is full of surprises but fortunately you are not alone when you deal with them. Whether you want to learn the best way to keep your wallets safe, or how not to buy a new chest-of-drawers, or write a will (urgently) or fast track a US passport, this is the book for you. So you thought making a canvas pack was easy, well think again. At last you have the definitive way to celebrate a fiftieth birthday and how do you humanely deal with rats in the roof (or perhaps you don’t)? How can someone lose all their wedding photos and what should you do when your neighbours mislead you? Why not just give away your rubbish, it’s a win-win situation. Have you heard of the forgotten railway trip and what should you do when your sister gives you a jacket decorated with marijuana plants. Read on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Buckley
• Release date: Mar 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311387325

Paul Buckley

Paul Buckley has written more than twenty books some of which are available in ebook formats. Paul passed away in 2017. He lived most of his life in Palmerston North, New Zealand, a small city with a long name, a city that is well worth visiting. This is the place where the City Fathers constantly shift their river around to stop it flooding. Things he liked: rainbows, walking in warm rain, the sounds of strong wind, shared laughter, traveling on trains, surprising photos, hot nights, generous acts and thoughtfulness. Note to travelers, Palmerston North is in the North Island and not to be confused with Palmerston, a tiny town in the South Island of New Zealand.

Book preview

We’re Feeling a Little Sheepish…

Sometimes You’ve Just Got to Laugh

Paul Buckley

2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.

Copyright 2015

Life’s Like That

When Losing Your Wallet Really Doesn’t Matter

At the risk of sounding defensive at the start, let me explain how I solved the problem of keeping my wallet safe. Even if on one day in early February it failed spectacularly, I still cling to the belief that my system is sound. After all it had worked well for years and I had no reason to think it would let me down now.

I have what I still believe is an elegant solution to the wallet losing scenario, one I rather pride myself on. It solves two problems at once. Certainly there is nothing more annoying than losing all your cards and having to wander around town replacing them, and my new system reduces to a minimum the probability that I will end up in this unpleasant situation. I haven’t patented the system so feel free to adopt it yourself without any attribution. If you follow my example, your reward will be the extra security and peace of mind it provides.

My solution is to carry around not one wallet but two wallets. By that act alone I double the probability that I will retain one of them and in this way I double my peace of mind, (but please don’t probe too deeply into my use of probability theory.) Of course you might say I also double the likelihood that I will lose one of them, and I have no defence against such an accusation (I call this nit picking myself).

However there is more, I give the two wallets different security ratings. One small cheap wallet contains at most forty dollars along with harmless items like shopping lists, while the other contains my high security cards such as my driver’s license and credit cards, along with extra cash which can be transfer as required to the cheap wallet. I am sure you are ahead of me by now. The high security wallet is placed in a side pockets which can be securely fastened with a button, or Velcro. Since I operate an old fashioned cash economy, I seldom need to use this high security wallet and the risk of losing this wallet is reduced almost to zero. Now the relative few times I must use, for example a credit card, becomes something of an occasion for me rather than a routine event, and when this wallet is out of safe storage it has my full attention.

Of course it can still be annoying to lose even a two dollar wallet, so I have special extra precautions to ensure I don’t lose this wallet easily, even if it is being taken in and out of its low security pocket often. So I use an old fashioned method, which has rather fallen out of favour over the years, namely having contact details clearly displayed so that the person who finds it can quickly and easily find out whom to phone to return the wallet to its real owner namely me. The fact of the matter is that most Kiwis are honest and when they find something their only desire is to find the rightful owner and return it as soon as possible. This is the trick our mothers used decades ago, which required placing name tags inside everything, and using a wallet with a transparent panel. These days I write my phone numbers on a card and slip it into place so it is the first thing the person sees when they open the wallet.

On the 11th February 2015, I tested this system to its limit Picture me working on the computer about 3:15 in the afternoon, when the phone rings. At first I don’t understand what is being said but the second time around I get it, Our daughters found your wallet, a man tells me, We live in Waterloo Crescent, so we can bring the wallet around to you.

The man tells me he will bring the wallet around in fifteen minutes.

I get some cash out to give to the girls to thank them for being so honest.

The man brings his two charming daughters around and I make a small speech about how pleased I am to get the wallet back and praise the girl’s honesty and give them my reward (enough for two small girls). The girls are pleased, I’m pleased and I now know who our neighbours at number 27 Waterloo Crescent are. It is a most pleasant exchange which leaves all of us feeling better than if I had never lost my small wallet. It’s a win-win situation.

Fast forward almost three hours, when I am around in Te Awe Awe Street visiting Bryan Anderson and hoping to get a few more of his delicious grapefruit for my breakfasts. The discovery that people on a number of different medications can’t eat grapefruit because it changes the dosing of their drugs and may cause serious problems if eaten, has been a great boon for me. Bryan is happy to oblige.

Then my cell phone rings.

It is Bruce. Someone has phoned to say they have found your wallet, he says.

I quickly reply, I know about that and I’ve got my wallet back already.

There is a puzzled silence before Bruce continues, The woman lives across the river in Johnston Street.

Now it is me who is puzzled and I ask for more details and am forced to realise that this is a quite different event. I check my pockets and sure enough this slippery wallet has disappeared yet again. Chastened, I write down the house number.

The lady who opens the door is absolutely delighted to have returned the wallet to its careless owner and we have another charming conversation that could have continued for much longer but the woman is in the middle of eating dinner and I depart hoping that we will meet again.

I then picked up the pieces. After getting the wallet back, I had stuffed it into my pocket careless of its security and half an hour later went walking on the undulating walkways across the river. Sometime during the walk it had fallen out of my undefended pocket. I did not tell this lady that I had lost the wallet once before today; it seemed unnecessary.

Again the clear labelling has re-united me and my wallet and in double quick time, but I don’t intend to make a habit of losing the wallet, it feels rather like I’m taking advantage of people of good will. I resolve, in future, to put this small wallet in my left-hand pocket, not a natural action for a right-handed person like me but there is less competition for space in this pocket. In the right pocket there is a big bunch of keys and these are yanked in and out frequently, with the potential each time for dragging the wallet out with it. So now the security even in this low security wallet is improved, provided that is I remember to use the left-hand pocket.

But so much for good intentions. Less than a month later I again lost this wallet. This time I thought I knew exactly where it was. Late the previous day I mailed a packet at our local Post Shop, or at what used to be our Post office, but about nine months ago it was defrocked as New Zealand Post cut down their branches because of falling mail volumes. The Korean owner is pushing bravely ahead trying to retain a business without the post, selling more gifts to try to compensate. I realise I must have left my wallet there.

The next morning I hurried back to ask Mark the owner whether he had found it.

Instead of answering he produced a wallet covered in Kiwis that looked exactly like mine but when I reach out to claim it he stops, No that’s my wallet, your wallet was found in the street. The woman who found it said she would take it to the Police Station. This is strange because usually I am contacted directly by the finder. So I hurry into town and the police woman does remember my Kiwi wallet, after all it came in only yesterday. So way, There was a name inside, wasn’t there, confident I know what her reply will be.

No, there was no name inside. When she finally found the wallet and handed it over, I rifled through it thinking the name card might be tucked away somewhere and she had just missed seeing it. But sure enough there was no name.

Do you have the name of the person who found it, I asked, I would like to thank him or her.

Unfortunately when I called the number I got an answering phone and must leave a message instead.

As you can see my good resolutions did not last long. What can I say? But at least I did in the end get the wallet back.

Bob’s Tenants can’t get into Hot Water

As you know every year Bob Lambourne in May leaves New Zealand behind and flies north to have a second summer in the United Kingdom. He is the envy of many of his friends. The only downside to this lifestyle is the need each year to find tenants to stay in his house. He doesn’t need the money but in New Zealand at least, the Insurance Companies get a bit upset if your house is empty for more than about two months. I suppose they picture thieves stealing, if not the house, then certainly all the contents or worse setting fire to the place. Of course strictly the house and contents are not left unattended, after all Bruce and I live just across the road, and we check it regularly but his Insurance Company does not regard this as being enough.

So Bob has to find someone suitable to rent the place for at least two months if not the whole five months he is away. It is not a job Bob looks forward to because like me he dislikes the screening process. We are both relieved each year when the matter is resolved. Recently he tapped into a regular clientele in the form of the Singaporean students who come to Massey University each June or July to do laboratory work. These students have become the first to get in touch each year when he advertises. And they are reliable because they