Things I’ve Lost: Taxis and Rental Cars

Advance Warning: today’s post is boring… Four hours of 24, four playoff games, and too many hours honing the last chapter of my novel have sucked the life out of me! But I promised a posting, and here it is. Tomorrow, Normal Girl will be back with the story of how we came by our upcoming flight to Las Vegas!!!

My Wallet
Here’s a story of mixed Samaritanism.

Cab driver finds a wallet in the backseat of his car. Inside he reads the phone number from a pinch of business cards and leaves an incomprehensible voicemail. (Note: cab ride was in Chicago, he took me from the airport to the office, left a voicemail in Boston on the same day; I received the message two weeks later).

When he doesn’t hear back, he packages up the IDs (including a Social Security Card), credit cards, assorted business cards, movie rental cards, receipts, and postage stamps, and mails the bundle to the business address on the card. He keeps the neatly folded Liar’s Poker dollars from the inside pockets (you know, the ones with six or seven of a kind -- I guarantee I’m the only person who knows what I’m talking about), 80 Euros, about $100, and the wallet.

It was tough for me to be angry, because the lost cash was not going to cause me to live on Top Ramen, and the miscellaneous IDs would have been much harder to replace. Still, I couldn’t help but think it was an odd gesture of partial good will on his part… Sure hope he got something nice for himself with those euros!

(Btw: you might ask how I got home. Well, I had to have my building superintendent enter my apartment, locate my passport, and Express Mail it to my hotel in Chicago, which was paid for by one of my colleagues.)

Cell Phone
I will make no excuses. The driver called the three most recent numbers, but the battery went dead an hour later. Here is another case where I may have been more careless with something because I unconsciously wanted it lost. That phone sucked.

Frankly, I’m surprised it’s only happened to me once…

Countless CDs
Note to self: take the CDs out of the rental car’s CD player before you get to the airport. Now was that so hard?

Countless Cheap Umbrellas
For umbrellas I shop exclusively at my corner convenience store. The beauty of $5 umbrellas is that you can through them away if you’re tired of carrying them (as I did on my second date with Normal Girl!), lose no tears when they inevitably break, and stash one in each piece of luggage so you’re always prepared on the road. On the flipside, you tend to get a little careless with them. Here’s the typical chronology:

1. Learn it’s raining before leaving for the office.
2. Remove cheap umbrella from carry-on suitcase.
3. Carry said umbrella to the office.
4. After work, carry umbrella to car (if it’s raining) or forget in the office if it’s not.
5. Drop umbrella in trunk or backseat.
6. Record mental note: “don’t forget to pack the umbrella at the hotel.”
7. Pack suitcase on last morning of stay, carry to car, stash in trunk.
8. Jot down mental reminder of earlier note: “don’t forget to pack the umbrella before leaving for the airport.”
9. Leave for airport fifteen minutes later than you wanted to (an inevitable event).
10. Arrive at airport, huffing and puffing from cursing at traffic to get out of your way so you can make your flight.
11. Grab suitcase, forget umbrella.

I can predict with reasonable certainty the next big ticket item I’ll leave in the center console… Let me give you a hint. Starts with an “i” and ends with a “pod.”

Until later, safe travels…

-- Normal Guy (a.k.a. Jason Shaffner)