Seventy-three-year-old George McNeilon selected his food in Value Mart more carefully than NASA chose its candidates for the space shuttle. Skim milk was $2.99, on sale from $3.49; white bread, 89 cents with a 10-cent discount; table salt, 99 cents, 20 cents off the regular price. Leaving the cashier, he estimated that he had saved 80 cents today. He was pleased that he had got good value for his money again.
At the exit, the chilly wind reminded him of his gloves. "Now where are they?" Not in the coat pockets. Not in the pants pockets. Not in the grocery bag either. He was sure he was wearing them when he entered the store. He clearly remembered thrusting them into the pocket of his coat. The worried man made a second thorough search of all his pockets, again including the grocery bag. Now he was sure they must have been dropped somewhere inside the store.
Old George had bought the black gloves at a 25% discount, for just $35.00, ten years ago. They were genuine lamb skin, soft and warm and very durable. Until then, he had worn cheaper man-made material that never lasted longer than three years. His impulsive decision to buy the expensive gloves turned out to be a good one, which even promoted his social status on the bus, as poorer passengers stared at him enviously for six months out of the year. He had taken care not to let a drop of water or rain touch his expensive gloves, so they looked like new. Losing this favourite possession was almost like losing a child to him.
Bad luck, he thought, to lose his expensive gloves on New Year's Eve.
George, calm on the outside but frantic on the inside, re-entered the store with long steps. He followed the same route he had walked before, starting at the bread counter, to the dairy section, the aisle where salt and sugar were placed, then the rest of the store. They were all open aisles and it did not take long to be convinced that the gloves were not in sight. After checking the forty-foot-long bread section, he quickened his pace through the two-hundred-foot aisle leading to the dairy products. There he even turned over egg boxes to see if the gloves had fallen in between. Several minutes of anxious searching turned out to be in vain. His heart grew heavier and he started to sweat as he entered aisle six. The salt and sugar were packed in white bags, and anything black could be spotted easily. No. His black gloves were gone. His sharp eyes could not have missed them.
He ran through all the other aisles, then all the way to the cashier, but there was nothing.
"Society has changed, people have changed", he murmured to himself. "Years ago, if somebody picked up something lost, they would give it back. Not any more!"
Yet he did not give up. He started from the bread section again. This time he focused on the baskets and gloves in other shoppers' hands. He would stare at anybody wearing black gloves to see if they looked like his. The first two ladies he met were gloveless. The third person he saw was a man who did wear gloves, but they were working gloves covered with paint stains. On his way to the dairy section, there was a glimmer of hope: he noticed a lady fifteen feet away wearing a pair of gloves as dark and expensive as his. He sped up and in three seconds was in front of her. He even said "Hi!". But when the surprised lady returned his greetings, his eyes dropped to the floor again, for the fingers of her gloves were just far too small for him.