What would you do?

Picture this… Syracuse, you’re a poor but honest writer taking a morning stroll. Before you on the sidewalk is a very large woman’s wallet. You pick up the wallet and inside you find someone’s life. There is a sum of cash; roughly six or eight credit cards; driver’s license; insurance cards etc. It contained all the stuff that creates and oh SH*T moment when they are gone altogether. The woman on the license did not look familiar or happy and the street address I had never heard of. As I stood there I looked about to see if there was anyone who resembled the woman in the photo. I was standing in front a vacant store front and the insurance office next door did not appear open. I had a few thoughts here…

My first thought was to touch the wallet as little as possible in that I had no idea how it got there. As you may all have learned here, I am indeed part germaphobe, part conspiracy theorist. Had the owner actually dropped it or was it dropped by a stick up man or something? My over-active imagination wandered further down stupid road to; maybe it was set there by the producer of one of those “moralistic” television shows and there were a dozen or so people watching me hoping I’d stripe the thing of its contents and make a go for it. Then they could appear telling me what was going on and condescend like Mrs. Greenwood in the second grade. To this day I still maintain that I did not drop a cleaned eraser on the way for the storage cupboard. No matter, I also quickly pondered whether or not it was like that “Bait Car” television show where the police leave a running SUV in the hood and wait for someone to get in and then arrest them. I guess those weird thoughts should have been dismissed but, they weren’t. I looked across the street and saw a Veterinarian’s office and a mailbox next to that. I walked over and stood staring at the opened wallet in my hands. I wondered what I would want someone to do if they had found my life encased in faux leather. I also thought of karma.


It then occurred to me to take the thing home and search for the owner. I had an address and name. I then had the overwhelming thought that people suck. What if I called up and the person accused me of not returning all of her belongs or that she had more than a couple three twenties? In case you have not noticed, people see windfall opportunities everywhere. I actually felt bad for thinking these thoughts. In the old days the first and only option would have been to personally return the lost wallet. This is now entirely too risky. So here’s, what I did…

I smeared my prints where I had held the wallet and then dropped it in the mailbox. I looked about for Allen Funt or some such reincarnation and then crossed the street again and continued on my way. I was sad.