My My (Moo Moo in MosCOW)

 

There's a chain of restaurants in Moscow. The signs outside say "My My," which is pronounced "Moo Moo."

It is kind of cafeteria style--you go through and select salad and stuff first. The guy got tired of me pointing, shaking my finger and pointing somewhere else, and just made  me up a pretty good little chicken salad. Then the next guy gave me exactly what I was pointing to. It was some kind of ground beef (I hope) patty under a potato and gravy/sauce. The next guy was really cool. He pointed to stuff and called it by name (in ENGLISH--by now they had me figured out)--rice, potatoes, beets....I took mashed potatoes. I skipped the desserts and headed for the beverages. Got half a liter of draft beer. "Pivo" is easy to say. (Although that is Czech. Here it is "piva.") He knew what I meant. 

This was a great looking meal--and I had no idea what of would cost until I got to the checkout. It was 401 rubles. That is $13 or so. More than I had expected. I got a little flustered with what the lady was asking me until I figured out 401 was a weird number. So I  fished out that extra ruble. I was so proud of myself figuring out that is what she was asking for, and then finding it among my coins, that I rushed off before getting the  100 ruble note in change from my 500. Apparently I did not even think of it until a minute later when a busboy came over to give me my  100 note and receipt!!!!!

But wait!  There's more!!!!

So I start to fish out my wallet to put my 100 away.    And my wallet is not where it belongs. 

That can be a problem with cargo pants. But it is why I have two pair of cargo pants that MATCH pocket for pocket. Seriously. 

Passport always goes here. Toilet paper here. Pen and phone zipped in here. Change here. And wallet here. But wallet was not "here. "

I'm a bit scared. I had done some banking today and had some $400 in US and rubles. Not good. Visa card, drivers

License, and paper copy of ident page of passport. Did not want to lose it. 

It was not in any of my pockets. Not on my cafeteria tray. Not in the backpack. Not at the cashier. Nowhere in two laps around the restaurant. All of a sudden none of the help can speak any English (although that one guy could probably still say "potato, rice, beets"). I resigned myself to having lost it. Sad. Bummed. 

Then there it was on the floor next to my chair. 

Lucky me.