The Benevolence of Strangers

As a followup to my latest post, the $20 bill I so luckily came across in the back of my Levi's was not long for my pocketbook. Whilst on my way to happy hour, I unwittingly left my change purse with a wad of cash, a credit card, and my ID on the #34 trolley. After arriving at the bar and noticing the absence of said purse, I ran to retrace my steps as the hopelessness of ever seeing it again hit me. Empty-handed and defeated, I returned and ordered a Boddington's. When I came home later that night and logged onto email, I found an email from a person I didn't recognize entitled "Your purse." Instead of sending it off to spam world, I ecstatically opened the message, knowing some good Samaritan had located my possessions. Lo and behold, Harry had my coin purse and wanted to meet up to return it. I must have paid a kind favor to someone last week. Karma.

Reminds me of the time only months ago when my phone somehow 'fell' out of the car when a friend of mine was driving us home. Someone randomly picked up the battered phone (a few car tires had had their way with it before the rescuer got to it) lying in the street at some ungodly hour and called the first three phone numbers to find out who it belonged to. A few days later, I met up with the guy, who lived a decent distance from the city, to retrieve my phone. He could have just sold it on eBay (and gotten an entire five bucks for it) or kept it for his own.

Whoever said there was no such thing as altruism?