It's Always in the Last Place You Look

I arrived in Stockholm Monday night and the hotel asked me if i wanted to prepay and I said okay. After i got my credit card back, I held it in my hand, along with my room key.

I get to my room and tried to turn on the light, to no avail, realizing I needed the room card to turn on the electricity, so I slipped it in. Just as I was about to walk away, I recalled a trick Caleb taught me about using a useless card in your wallet instead of your room key - but I also remembered that there are some hotel rooms with contactless smart cards that will not let you do that. I wanted to see whether or not another card would work and was about to put in my credit card and in a split second decided that it was a stupid idea and didn't end up doing it.

Later that night, I went downstairs to meet up with my colleague and offered to pay for the drink, only to find that my credit card was not in my bag. Embarrassed as I was, I said I would pay for the next one. When I got back to my room, I forgot about the missing card and went to bed. The next morning, before I left for work, I searched thoroughly for it but couldn't find it. I left the room in a hurry, taking my Canadian back-up credit card with me.

While staying in Stockholm for the next four days, I searched morning and night for this card. The room is a very Scandinavian room with no cracks for cards to hide so it was really confusing to me as to where this card went. But since in my memory the card HAD to be in the room, I did not cancel it and felt that once I pack all my things, the card HAD to show up somewhere.

By noon today when I was all packed, I admitted defeat. As confusing as the situation was, I decided I'll have to suck it up and call France to get my card replaced. Of course, in regular French fashion, they asked me a million of question and told me that the card will be sent to my branch at work, and then a new PIN code I cannot change will be sent to my house, after a full week. So it looks like I'm out of a payment method until next Friday (anyone wanna come feed me?)

After I got off the phone, I put on my shoes and dragged my suitcase out of my room. As I was getting in the elevator, I felt something slippery in my shoe. In the elevator, I took off the shoe, and there it was.

.....

BOOOOOOO