Lost and Found

Part one:

Last week, on Tuesday, I was standing on the train platform, waiting for the train to arrive to whisk me away to downtown. As is my somewhat OCD habit, I patted my coat pockets. My keys were in my left pocket. My cardholder ... was not in my right pocket.

I recalled sitting down and twisting around to say hi to my bus buddy, only he was involved in his phone and didn't respond. So when I got off the bus, I was thinking about how he snubbed me and didn't check the seat to see if I'd left my cardholder on the bus. Like I did once two years ago and which is why I'm kind of OCD about that.

I checked all of my pockets and my backpack. I got on the train - not consciously thinking I was boarding it without proper fare. I ended up tweeting Calgary Transit who said to call customer service. So I called, and relayed which bus I had been on at what time, and while I was on hold, the train went into the long tunnel south of Stampede Park and I lost the call.

I figured the odds were really low that I would get the cardholder back that day, so I bought a book of tickets. I also bought a transit pass for April and wrote my name and phone number on the back.

The cardholder had my transit pass and my blood donor card and my zoo pass. Plus a bunch of store cards that I get once for the discount, then rarely use. So nothing really important, but I wanted it back, to avoid the hassle of replacing the blood donor card and zoo pass.

The next day, I had planned on dropping by Calgary Transit's Lost and Found before work, but I was tired. I decided I would go during my lunch hour.

The phone rang about 10:30 am. A very nice lady from the Calgary Zoo called, to tell me that my cardholder had been found and was at Calgary Transit's Lost and Found. She gave me a claim code to retrieve it with. I thanked her.

So this must have happened - someone at Calgary Transit had looked at the cards for a contact phone number, didn't find one, so they called the Zoo because of my zoo pass with my name on it. And the Zoo kindly passed on the information.

It doesn't get more Canadian than that. :-)

I went to the Lost and Found office at lunch and got the cardholder back. Happily, my transit pass was still in it so I could stop using the tickets.

Part two:

Tonight I stopped at Wal-mart on my way home. I got some groceries - finally, gluten-free Bisquick! I also got some chicken. I paid for my purchases, grabbed a bag, and walked home. When I got home, I took the bag into the kitchen so I could put away everything, especially the chicken.

I didn't have the chicken. The bag I had contained everything but. So I grabbed the receipt and drove back to Wal-mart because I must have left the chicken there.

The cashier remembered me. She said, "Oh, the lady behind you said 'That woman forgot her chicken!' so she took the bag and left!"

The other cashier said, "she just took the chicken?"

Yep. The cashier told me to just go get more chicken, which I did. All I can say is, I hope that the woman who took my chicken needed it.