guilt

Day Two of the Mind and its potential conference and our host is a serious male ABC reporter, balancing yesterday’s I-can’t-take-her-seriously-at-all newsreader from a commercial network.

The nine o’clock is a Canadian on passion who seems to think we’ll share his passion for basketball. Someone should have told him. Next is a professor from Wollongong with a remnant South African accent. He leans on the side of the lectern, tells us about historical figures with interesting brains, but neglects to leave enough time to tell us what distinguished the contents of their craniums.

Two speakers on the mind and education save my morning. Then a principal from a school boasting creative independent thinkers reads her boring speech, utterly undermining her school’s claim.

I’ve eaten shit takeaway food here in Sydney for two days so when we break for lunch I wander off on my own and order a seafood risotto from a harbourside restaurant. Just as it arrives I realise my wallet is in my backpack in a locker at the hotel with Comrade S’s airport case. She alone has the combination and I don’t know her whereabouts. No panic: I dial her mobile number. No answer.

It dawns on me that I have my work debit card in my briefcase. I breathe easy and eat better in that knowledge. Suddenly, doubt gnaws. I check. It’s not there. It’s in my wallet too. I finish the last grain of rice, summon the waitress, confess my sin, my stupidity, my I-don’t-what-to-do-nowness. She brings in the boss, a young Asian woman who weighs about 32 kgs.

I leave my briefcase and laptop with her, promise to return. Comrade S and the KM crew finally arrive at the conference late for the afternoon session. Comrade S spots me $25. I retrace guilty steps to the restaurant, hand over the notes. My embarrassment increases: the risotto is $26.5 not $23.5 as I thought.

All my reason tells me the whole thing is an honest mistake anyone might make. Nonetheless it’s one I’ve never made before: had a meal and forgotten my wallet. I’m scrupulously honest: why should I feel such shame?

I return to the conference but can face no more. I sit in the foyer and ruminate. I’ve wasted several hundred dollars by missing conference sessions, not to mention the air fare, the hotel room, taxi fares, just to be here. I think nothing of it.

So why am I fussed that a thriving restaurant is taking a loss of $1.50 because of me?

Rock on.