Passing the Bucks Back to the Owner : A Wallet--and $650--Left in a Candy Store Are Returned

An anonymous sweetie in a candy store gave Zaida Bhaga a Valentine’s Day to remember.

The unknown good Samaritan last week found a wallet Bhaga had left at a See’s Candies store on South Atlantic Boulevard in Monterey Park.

The wallet was returned still stuffed with $650 in cash--money that was intended to pay for a hospital procedure for Bhaga’s fiance, Joseph Dib.

The fortuitous sequence of events went like this: On Valentine’s Day, Dib was admitted to Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park, where he was to undergo exploratory surgery. He had brought his wallet full of money--seven $100 bills--in case the hospital asked him to pay up front.

Dib, 38, a purchasing manager for a fast food franchise in Los Angeles, and Bhaga, 40, who works at Garfield as an Intensive Care Unit ward nurse, had feared Dib’s symptoms pointed to something serious. But when Dib’s doctor discovered it was only a minor ailment, Bhaga was so relieved she decided to celebrate with a chocolate spree.

While Dib was resting in the hospital, Bhaga took his wallet and hopped over to See’s, where she splurged. She bought three $16 boxes of chocolates--one for the recovery room and surgery nurses; one for the outpatient surgery department, and one for her daughter. She paid for the presents with one of the $100 bills, and her change was a $50 bill.

But she forgot to take the wallet back with her, and didn’t discover the loss until she and Dib returned home to Whittier that afternoon. On their answering machine was a message from Eleanor Ayala, the store manager. Ayala said a woman had turned in Dib’s wallet.

The store had been jammed with Valentine’s Day customers, and nobody was able to give a good description of the woman.

Bhaga was lucky, Ayala said. “A lot of people don’t return (lost wallets), they take it. We had other people lose $300 or $400.”

“To me it was impossible that somebody would turn in a wallet with $650,” Bhaga said. “I was sure everything was gone, maybe some of his credit cards, too. And his (permanent) resident’s card.”

Even more shocked at the safe return of the wallet and its contents was Dib, who immigrated to the United States from Lebanon six years ago.

“He said, ‘I didn’t believe Americans were so honest, but now I believe,’ ” Bhaga said.