Mini Miracles.

A story for the bored.

At the moment a friend from New Zealand is staying. Yesterday morning I was in a bit of a rush because that’s what happens when you have a new face to chat to in the morning. There is also a giant double mattress in our lounge which means the assortment of running, jumping, lunging and stretching associated with manoeuvuring round such a beast greatly reduces an already limited morning time frame. I was running late.

I rushed out the door and half ran my way to the tube. When I arrived at the station, placed my hand in my pocket like I do every morning to retrieve my Oyster card, I found nothing. Emptiness. I almost felt my heart sink, lowered into the depths where everything else I had lost or forgotten was now dwelling. I rummaged through every pocket I had. Near emptied the entire contents of my bag surrounded by the rush of morning commuters, but nothing. An unfortunate way to spend the morning is attempting to speed your way to work on a tube. A cruel way to spend your morning is to add the loss of your Oyster card and a £4.50 morning commute. Yes, more than a Tesco meal deal, to travel a distance I could walk if I had 30 minutes more and a penchant for arriving to work sweaty.

I jumped on the tube, now running very late, and with a frown on my face to match every other unhappy, tired, irritated, ‘insert complaint here’, Londoner. I looked hard for the card when I arrived home that evening but the truth was obvious and brutal; it was lost. I mentioned this as resolutely and defiantly as only a long day at work can conjure, and was offered a spare replacement that my flatmate just happened to have lying around. An old friends’one that no longer needed use. It was a definite comfort, but that £4.50 missing from my bank account still rung loud and true in my morning memories.

I woke early next morning, knowing I would have to join the queue to top up my card at the station, thankful that I at least didn’t have to get a new one. I arrived at the station and decided to try and touch in anyway and see if the card had a bit of left over money on it, so placed my card on the reader waiting for the long, piercing beeeeeep, which signals that you are poor, have no money on your card and most likely you are also late, frustrated, hungry and cold. It never came. The light flashed green and that quick, soft, beautiful beep was sounding instead. I couldn’t believe it. Not only was there enough on the card for my morning commute, there was £5 MORE than I had on my previous one.

Instinctively, I smiled. A big, broad, crazy person smile. Some things just come around when you least expect it. Something out there gives you a boost, a wee push along and a reminder that life isn’t always against you. Whether its money on a discarded Oyster card or a mere smile amongst a crowd of glares (another’s morning triumph...), I couldn’t help but put a positive perspective into the day ahead.

To add a new wonder to an already beautifully blossoming day, I decided to go online and see if I had registered my card, thus protecting it from being lost or stolen, that one time I had been playing around with the card settings online. Magically, I had. The lost card I had spent so much of the morning, and day, berating over was still lost, but the money I had put on it just that evening before, was now going to be transferred to my new card which is being placed in the mail to me as we speak, 5 working days. First Class. Free. Of. Charge.

A mini miracle. Time to pass it on.