Me, my husband, and my mother in law was shopping daily needs in a supermarket. Inside the supermarket there was a section that’s being renovated so we have to turn around to reach next section. We searched for items that we needed. After we finished grabbing all of them, we walked to the cashier. There was a purple backpack on top of the cashier’s table. I felt very familiar to this backpack. I had a backpack just like that. Exactly similar. I hurriedly approached the backpack and opened it without doubt. Thankfully nobody stopped me or called me thief. Everything in that backpack were mine. So, it was true. That backpack was mine. I went and looked for an officer there and told him, that backpack on the cashier’s table was mine. “Can I take it home?”, I asked. “Go ahead”, he answered me. I was so happy, but I was confused about one thing. How did my backpack get on that table? I didn’t bring it to the supermarket!
This dream made me remembered about a real incident two weeks prior. Me and my husband went on vacation to Singapore. When we landed on Singapore, we waited for shuttle bus which would carry us from Terminal 4 to Terminal 2. (We weren’t able to get on MRT on Terminal 4. MRT station was on Terminal 2.) We sat on soft sofas which were provided by the airport. We put down our belongings, rested for a while, and took some pictures. When the shuttle bus came, we hurriedly took our belongings and dragged our suitcases out through the door. We queued to get on the bus because there were a lot of people who also wanted to get on the bus. After we got on the bus, the door was closed and the bus moved to Terminal 2. When it stopped, we grabbed our suitcases and got off. We walked quite far to MRT station. We took out our passenger cards and tapped them on the machines, in order to be able to pass the checkpoint and wait for MRT to come.
When the MRT arrived, we went in and sat leisurely in it. The MRT stopped at next station, and moved again. Then it stopped at second station. My eyes looked around and watched people around us. When I saw my husband still had his camera strapped around his neck, I told him to put it into his backpack. That’s when he realized something and surprised. I was surprised too. Where was my husband’s backpack? Oh, no… Do you know where was my husband’s backpack? Guess! Where did he left it behind? Was it at terminal 2? Was it in the bus? Was it at terminal 4? Was it in the airplane?
In a flash we dragged our suitcases out of the MRT and waited for the MRT that moved at opposite direction. We prayed in our heart, hopefully we were still able to find the backpack. We had to trace back our journey. When the MRT came, we got in and got off at airport terminal 2. Then we waited for shuttle bus which would carry us back to terminal 4. When the bus came, we got on hurriedly. We made sure all our belongings were with us this time. When the bus stopped, we got off, but too bad, it didn’t stop at the place we waited for bus before. We had to walk all the way back to the place where we sat and waited for bus. There were a lot of people sitting there. We were very nervous. Was our backpack still there? We searched and searched, but my husband’s backpack was no longer there on the place he sat before. Noooo!
We asked an officer near there, and he told us to go to information center. We kept praying in our heart, hopefully the backpack was found by someone nice and was given to the airport officers. When we arrived at information center, we saw a blue backpack being examined by airport officers. They looked at us, and my husband quickly said that it was his backpack. They tried to identify him, asked his name and told him to list the items which were stored inside the backpack. My husband said that there should be airplane tickets in there, Kuching to Singapore ones, which had our names on them. Thankfully my husband put tickets that we had just used in it, so the identification process wasn’t long. An officer asked my husband to fill in a statement form and sign it. He also asked my husband to check his belongings. We were very grateful that we didn’t lost the backpack and none of the contents were missing. The officers were also kind and very good people.
So, did you guess correctly where my husband left his backpack behind? If you answered terminal 4 waiting area, then you were right!
The lesson to be learned from this story is, we have to keep tab on our belongings when we are traveling. Several minutes before that backpack was left behind, my mother in law chatted my husband and reminded him to watch all his belongings, don’t leave any behind. After this incident, we also heard a lot of announcements from loudspeakers, both on MRT and on airport, reminding people to watch their belongings. Every time we heard that, me and my husband would look at each other, and we slowly smiled.
Humans often can’t avoid making mistakes and being careless. This was a precious lesson for us not to let it happen again. Hopefully it can also become a lesson for all of us.