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Morning: blah blah draft crap blah blah watch end of Dexter S3 while drafting said crap blah blah send emails blah blah drive to court one blah call from court two blah blah wind up with multiple hearings set for second week of August (see Periodic Week from Hell: A Summary, 49 Captainsblog L. Rev. 2009).
Afternoon: Three unsuccessful pit stops to find Samsung-USB cord for kid's new mobile; find no new mail (and therefore none of increasingly past-due invoice payments) at office; drown sorrows by means of ordering a "Delaware" bagel sammich at Snyder location of Manhattan Bagel, the only one that still remembers the old Bagel Brothers menu; stop home briefly and share stories with beloved; find USB at ATT (M-O-U-S-E); mail same to spawn; cardio self at BAC next to Boulevard; complicate life.
I should back up to that last part, huh.
As I headed south from the gym, I saw something distinctively male and valuable lying in the road. No, not THAT, you pervs. A wallet. Full and fat, from the look of it.
I should note that the dual-carriageway in question, known locally as "Alberta Drive," is rather notorious for being insane. Eleanor almost died in a head-on crash near this very spot a decade ago as she drove a new, small car through the Alberta-Hemel intersection simultaneous with a teenage idiot turning an older, bigger car in front of her oncoming path. There is no parking on the road, and a temporary stop would be suicidal. So I pulled a youie, headed to a safe parking spot in one of the apartment lots just past the apparent prize, walked into the road to grab it,....
and was accosted by a station wagon full of nuns.
Okay. It was more like a Ford Taurus, and only a pair of seeming Sisters occupied it. They'd seen the wallet, too, and wanted to check out both it and me.
Is there I.D. in it?, they asked. Um, sure- my eyes moved first to the collection of cards within it and I found a name, and then, next to it in the window-display section, a business card- of a store about a block down the road and then one block over from Alberta's southern terminus.
Is there money?, was the next question. At first I only saw singles, but flipping further, was a bit more- but not much more than I withdraw from an ATM at any given moment these days- no more than a hundred, tops. I assured them I'd reunite it with its rightful owner. But then came the guilt:
You be sure to do the right thing!, said the driver, only able to shake half a left index finger at me because it was holding a cigarette.
My non-existent Irish got up and I said, Whatever. Do YOU want to take it to him?, and handed it through the open window.
Sister Mary Guilt-trip agreed to do the deed; I made sure they knew where the store was, and I headed back to my apartment-parked car. Because of that delay and two red lights, I couldn't tail them to ensure they followed through. But I did call the store when I got home, and the chickie who answered the phone there, April, informed me that she'd seen no such good Samaritans in the intervening moments. She knew the wallet owner's name, but he manages their OTHER store, on the other side of town. I checked that number, as well; Dan was off today, and nobody there had heard from or about him in the past few moments, either.
So did I fuck up this random act of kindness? Had I passed on by, anyone could've grabbed the not-quite-hundred and begun shopping on the credit cards which I presume are in there. By giving into a Church Lady voice and passing the responsibility to them, I may have enabled the same thing I was trying to prevent. Worst, I won't know until tomorrow (not having the sense to remember much more than dude's first name and his business name) whether it all worked out.
It ain't easy being good.
----
Edited and unlocked for happy-ending reasons: He got it back. They took it to his house, not the store. All's well that ends well:)
Afternoon: Three unsuccessful pit stops to find Samsung-USB cord for kid's new mobile; find no new mail (and therefore none of increasingly past-due invoice payments) at office; drown sorrows by means of ordering a "Delaware" bagel sammich at Snyder location of Manhattan Bagel, the only one that still remembers the old Bagel Brothers menu; stop home briefly and share stories with beloved; find USB at ATT (M-O-U-S-E); mail same to spawn; cardio self at BAC next to Boulevard; complicate life.
I should back up to that last part, huh.
As I headed south from the gym, I saw something distinctively male and valuable lying in the road. No, not THAT, you pervs. A wallet. Full and fat, from the look of it.
I should note that the dual-carriageway in question, known locally as "Alberta Drive," is rather notorious for being insane. Eleanor almost died in a head-on crash near this very spot a decade ago as she drove a new, small car through the Alberta-Hemel intersection simultaneous with a teenage idiot turning an older, bigger car in front of her oncoming path. There is no parking on the road, and a temporary stop would be suicidal. So I pulled a youie, headed to a safe parking spot in one of the apartment lots just past the apparent prize, walked into the road to grab it,....
and was accosted by a station wagon full of nuns.
Okay. It was more like a Ford Taurus, and only a pair of seeming Sisters occupied it. They'd seen the wallet, too, and wanted to check out both it and me.
Is there I.D. in it?, they asked. Um, sure- my eyes moved first to the collection of cards within it and I found a name, and then, next to it in the window-display section, a business card- of a store about a block down the road and then one block over from Alberta's southern terminus.
Is there money?, was the next question. At first I only saw singles, but flipping further, was a bit more- but not much more than I withdraw from an ATM at any given moment these days- no more than a hundred, tops. I assured them I'd reunite it with its rightful owner. But then came the guilt:
You be sure to do the right thing!, said the driver, only able to shake half a left index finger at me because it was holding a cigarette.
My non-existent Irish got up and I said, Whatever. Do YOU want to take it to him?, and handed it through the open window.
Sister Mary Guilt-trip agreed to do the deed; I made sure they knew where the store was, and I headed back to my apartment-parked car. Because of that delay and two red lights, I couldn't tail them to ensure they followed through. But I did call the store when I got home, and the chickie who answered the phone there, April, informed me that she'd seen no such good Samaritans in the intervening moments. She knew the wallet owner's name, but he manages their OTHER store, on the other side of town. I checked that number, as well; Dan was off today, and nobody there had heard from or about him in the past few moments, either.
So did I fuck up this random act of kindness? Had I passed on by, anyone could've grabbed the not-quite-hundred and begun shopping on the credit cards which I presume are in there. By giving into a Church Lady voice and passing the responsibility to them, I may have enabled the same thing I was trying to prevent. Worst, I won't know until tomorrow (not having the sense to remember much more than dude's first name and his business name) whether it all worked out.
It ain't easy being good.
----
Edited and unlocked for happy-ending reasons: He got it back. They took it to his house, not the store. All's well that ends well:)