Picture this: A purse, a wallet, and a pair of gloves find themselves suddenly separated from their beloved owner, their anxiety mounting as the distance between them grows. Well, in truth, the gloves are kinda like, "Yeah sure whatever, this is fine," but the purse is really determined not to be left behind. It is the earnest and leathery voice of reason, of motivation, and the other accessories cannot help but heed it, their sense of personal agency being somewhat underdeveloped. Anyway, they all resolve to battle their way back to their owner, kicking off a long, intrepid, and ultimately quite heartwarming reunion journey.

You know the plot: it's 1993's classic tale of adventuresome pets, Homeward Bound, fun for the whole family. It's also, loosely, the story that unfolded when an Area Woman left her bag on the subway this week.

On Monday, Ashley Patrick exited a downtown Q train at Herald Square, realizing only as the doors trundled shut that her bag was still onboard. Frantic, she called in Commuter Twitter, sending out an alert to the MTA.

"I just left my purse on the Q headed downtown," she wrote. "It has my wallet, headphones, and my son's new gloves. My husband just lost his job, and there's no way I can replace the things that were in it."

"If there was ever a time for an Xmas miracle," she added, "this is it."

And yes, it seems safe to assume that the subway will swallow up whatever extraneous items you might leave behind: whether it's tens of thousands of tubes of Chapstick or whole bags of groceries stowed under the seat and immediately forgotten by overtired commuters, the trains have voracious appetites. As such, Patrick didn't necessarily expect results. "I’d never had more than a handful of friends, and friends of friends, engage with a tweet," she told NBC New York.

And yet, at time of writing, the message had been retweeted nearly 5,000 times and racked up over 17,000 faves. All that attention got the job done, because within about an hour, Patrick tweeted an update: The bag was found! Thanks to a benevolent straphanger — whose Twitter and Venmo handles Patrick shared, noting that he and his young family have also been "having a really rough time of it" lately, and could use support in whatever form it might take —the purse came back to Patrick with nearly all her belongings inside (only the headphones were missing). Which is pretty impressive, considering the purse's hour-long, solo subway commute.

We're not finished yet, though. Just to pile on, in an objectively uplifting way, the Purse Returner also stepped forward to thank the many strangers who sent his family "blessings and Venmo gifts ... in such a critical time."

"The response I've received from returning [Patrick's] bag was entirely unprecedented," Damian Conde tweeted. "I only wanted to do what I would have hoped another would do for me in that scenario. I would like to thank Ashley for turning her Christmas miracle into one for my own family in return. ...I couldn't begin to thank everyone enough!"

Shhhhh it's okay to cry.