Returning Lost Things

[penmage]

This morning, I left my work ID (with my monthly metrocard) on the bus. When N doesn’t drive me in the mornings, I take a bus to the subway. I discovered this happy news when I got to the subway and couldn’t find my metrocard.

You can imagine what kind of a damper that put on my morning.

Especially because today is not a wonderful hair day, and if I have to retake an ID picture, I’d rather it be with better hair.

Needless to say, I was Not Pleased.

And then I came to work. And my phone rang.

The lady on the phone said that her name was Jennifer, and she lived in Riverdale. I was trying to figure out if this was someone I should know when she told me that she had found my ID on the bus, and she works in Times Square, and I can come by and get it any time.

There’s a Jewish mitzvah called Hashavat Aveida, returning lost things. It’s kind of obvious that returning lost property is a nice thing to do. But seriously, you guys, when you lose something and you think it’s gone for good (especially in New York City!) and a stranger finds it and makes the effort to reunite you with it? That’s magical. It's the best feeling in the world. You don't have to beat yourself up for being stupid anymore, and wonder where you lost it and what happened to it and try to replace it. It’s really the nicest thing ever.

Comments

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

Yay for Jennifer!

[akamarykate.livejournal.com]

Okay, that story just made me grin like a loon. Jennifer rocks!

[hookncrook.livejournal.com]

It certainly turned your day around.

[esc-key.livejournal.com]

Yay! That's great! I know exactly how you feel because I lost my work ID one day. (I say "lose" but really it broke and fell off while I was walking and I didn't notice. S&S has really crappy lanyards.) So I freaked out like you did. And when I got to the office there was a message from a guy who said he had it and did I need it! Some people are cool.

Catholics pray to St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of seekers of lost things. /Random sharing of religious info.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I usually clip it to my coat pocket, but it was so nice out yesterday I was wearing my leather jacket, and it didn’t clip as well. I don’t even remember if I put it in my pocket or on my lap or whatever, but it didn’t make it off the bus.

As for the saints, that’s really cool. I’m sort of fond of patron saints, in my own non-Catholic way.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Yay for Jennifer!

[shhbabe.livejournal.com]

Crossroads of the world: Once it was Rome. Now, it's Times Square!

Awesome! As has been said, Jennifer rawks.

[jaenanda.livejournal.com]

Once, my phone and my wallet fell out of my pocket when I rode over a bump on my bike- and I didn't know.

In fact, I found out when my ex-boyfriend (and now very good friend- imagine that) e-mailed me to let me know that he had my wallet- I had his number taped to the inside back when we were dating because I had an impossible time remembering his phone number- and phone.

I was very grateful. New Orleans is the sort of city where someone takes your card and runs a $1,000 tab at a strip club, you know? I like to think that the universe works itself out sometimes, though. I would have done the same thing if I had found someone else's lost belongings.

I like stories like this. They reaffirm my faith in humanity.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

When I was working at Books of Wonder, I found a cellphone that had been hiding for months in our lost and found bin. It was sort of tucked into a hat, so I had never noticed it. I had to borrow a phone charger so I could turn it on, and then I had the hardest time tracking down the owner! The “dad” number had been disconnected, and “mom” didn’t know whose phone could have been found in New York. It took me cold-calling six different people in her phone before I tracked down the owner.

I like having the opportunity to return things to people, largely because it makes me so damn happy when people return things to me.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely story, and Jennifer is kind, but I am even more impressed with the idea that this is a mitzvah. That someone took the time to imagine and catalog all the ways we can bless one another. That I really, really like.

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

I went to a huge state university (UMass). Once, my junior year, my wallet fell through a hole I hadn't known was in my coat pocket (it was my grandfather's old leather coat -- I was being vintage).

Talk about surprise, when a girl showed up at the place I worked not two hours later, with it in hand -- all the cash and cards in place -- saying she had tracked me down via my roommate! It was, indeed, a warm fuzzy feeling.

(Except that I had already cancelled all the cards and paid $15 for a new student ID. D'oh!)

[poisonivory.livejournal.com]

Isn't it wonderful when that happens? I once lost my cell phone in the Times Square AMC, and the guy who found it called my mom, who called me and gave me his phone number, and we set up a meeting place where he could return it to me. New Yorkers can really be wonderful sometimes.

[vass]

I'm very glad you got that call.

And I think it's really cool that returning lost things is considered a mitzvah.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Isn’t it? It’s one of the (many) things I really love about my religion. There’s a big category of mitzvot called V’Ahavta l’reyacha kamocha--love your friends like yourself—which includes lots of subcatagories, like returning lost things, visiting the sick, and hosting guests, among other things.

It’s one of the reasons why (I suspect) when N and I went to Scotland a few years ago, we spent the two Shabbats we were there staying at the home of this ridiculously nice family who had never met us before, but when I called them to ask if they could host us for meals (they were the parents of a friend of a friend) they invited us to stay at their house without hesitation.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's marvelous. I'm so glad you got it back. :)