Meeting One of the Good People of the World
Went to visit the mother-in-law over the weekend and when we got home from that little trip there was a message waiting for me on the phone. Somehow I'd managed to drop my wallet outside of the mother-in-laws house and some nice woman found it. Not only did she find it, but she searched through the telephone book to find me and call me to say that she had found it, which isn't an easy task since we live outside of the free calling area of the city and she would have had to look not only in the city listings, but also through the regional area listings in the Christchurch phone book. On top of that I have ID under two different names in my wallet - my married name and my maiden name, and our phone number is still listed under my maiden name.
Honestly, I don't know if I would have gone to that much effort; we've had wallets left behind at work and if there isn't an obvious contact number in the wallet and the owner doesn't call back for it within twenty fours hours we just hand it in to the police. So it was lovely today to make the trip into Christchurch again to pick up my wallet and meet the good samaritan who did make the effort. Despite her protestations that she'd only done what anyone would do, I'm not so sure. After her refusal of a monetary reward, I went down to the mall and brought her a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates and a twenty dollar voucher for a cafe franchise. She'd brightened my day, the very least I could do was try to brighten hers a little.
Honestly, I don't know if I would have gone to that much effort; we've had wallets left behind at work and if there isn't an obvious contact number in the wallet and the owner doesn't call back for it within twenty fours hours we just hand it in to the police. So it was lovely today to make the trip into Christchurch again to pick up my wallet and meet the good samaritan who did make the effort. Despite her protestations that she'd only done what anyone would do, I'm not so sure. After her refusal of a monetary reward, I went down to the mall and brought her a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates and a twenty dollar voucher for a cafe franchise. She'd brightened my day, the very least I could do was try to brighten hers a little.
3 Comments:
That's a lovely story, and yes, she did go well beyond the call of normal duty. Last week, I was in a supermarket and watched a wallet being dropped into lost property.
Do you not at least look to see if there is ID inside it? Or ring their bank if they have cards, so they can pass a message on to the owner?
"No, we just wait for them to ring us and ask if we've got it."
Ten years ago, we picked my son up from school, and got a bit bad-tempered because he was late and still dithering. I put his flute on the roof of the car while he and his bags got it. Drive home - no flute. Phone call - woman who worked for the local education service had seen it in the road, retrieved it, looked him up on a school list, and rung us. We did the same thing - bought her flowers and chocolates. No vouchers, though. I think we get one person like this in a lifetime. Two if we're lucky?
By lesley153, Jul 26 09 7:40 PM
I hope most people would do the same, I always have (maybe as I was taught to from an early age) and have had keys and my mobile phone returned to me when I dropped them. But still a huge relief when it happens to us.
By satguru, Jul 26 09 8:11 PM
That was very nice of her, and very nice of you. Losing the wallet is nothing, but losing all the identification and credit cards, etc. is very bad and takes a lot of work to get everything changed.
By honeybee4, Jul 26 09 8:33 PM