Karma test: what do you do when you find a fat wallet?

@Eorl,

I somehow dropped a paycheck once, a month's paycheck, and was busy going out of my mind when I got a phone call. Someone had found it, traced it, got my phone number, and after a happy conversation, mailed it to me. Of course, checks can be stopped, etc., but it this case it was all good. I got smarter by a hair and the person was an excellent human.

I've been saved another time - decades later I left my car open after going back and forth to unload stuff, and someone riffled it and found, what, my wallet. (##%# at myself). That riffler took his find to the nearest liquor store.. where someone (I now forget who, either the store guy or another customer, remember it as a customer) got ahold of the wallet and called me. Wouldn't take a reward.

Don't right now remember finding someone else's stuff.

Was weeding in my alley (I used to be such a conscientious gardener) and found an early 1900's dime. Had it on my desk at work since I had showed it to my just about to be business partner, in her nursery, where I was designing. Then it was gone. I think I know who took it. Maybe she needed it more than I did. Hope she realized it was more interesting than a usual dime.

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@Green Witch,

Green Witch wrote:

Money is not very important to me, but I'll remember that if I ever find any that belongs to you.

Not very important to me either... My thinking is this: I do not know who got there first, and if they took the first half I may be charged with taking it all, instead of only half of the second half, so I am going to need a lawyer if I can be found anyway, and a down payment is nice to have in hand... Since I have lost more money than I could ever possibly find without anyone returning anything, my thinking is: Half of something is worth more than all of nothing, and the money is not nearly as valuable as the licence and telephone numbers and credit cards that people usually carry...

Never carry more than you can afford to lose, and if I do find your fat wallet you will probably get it back in your pocket it good order for one simple reason: When ever I find I am justifying my behavior to myself I know I am doing something that does not justify itself... If I ever was asshole enough to trim some money off some drunk who was too stupid to find his pocket with his loot, I never did take it all, and I am sure enough sorry... I just don't want to sound that way... People who let their **** out in the wind ought not to be surprised when it gets blowed away... Forget luck, or karma or the kindness of strangers... Manage your affairs as though they were your own...

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@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

I can understand keeping the money if you find it on the ground - with no apparent owner. I think the difference in my case - it was found at work so it belonged most likely by some co-worker. Now granted there was probably a large number of people this could belong to - but I figured the rightful owner may go to security to claim it.

If you find money on the street, there is unlikely any way to find a rightful owner. Makes sense in that case to keep it. When I see (usually change - sometimes a dollar bill) on the street or parking lot - I point it out to one of my kids for them to pocket - I do explain that since there is no way to find the rightful owner, they can keep it in that case. Whereas if a wallet or other means of identifying could be found, they should turn it in where ever appropriate.

Found property by law is not the property of the person who found it, though it may become the property of that one who found it provided official help is enlisted to determine its true owner... Does anyone really want the property of another when that may mean denying to one what they need and lost by accident??? Some times people get sick, or are flustered, or in a hurry, and they lose valueables... They are theirs yet, and if taken, are stolen...

My wife lost her engagement ring... Not worth much; maybe a couple grand... She was helping me on the car, and stuffed it in her purse, and later in a parking lot, she pulled out a kleenex for our child's nose and lost the ring... Next thing I know, some one called the house responding to an ad in the paper about a lost ring... What lost ring??? She did not want to tell me for fear I would blow my cork... Really??? Easy come, easy go...She lost her ring, but I got my wife, and a good one, and that amount is so much chicken feed in the ebb and flow of house hold money... What we lose with life is so much greater than mere goods and chattels... If I lost her love I would be forever poor...

1 Reply

@Green Witch,

Green Witch wrote:

Linkat, Fido must really pity you for giving all that money away. I think in your situation I might have put up a sign saying I found something of value and if the person who feels they lost it can tell me what it is they can have it. If someone said they lost a wad of bills I would probably be fine giving it to them.

My wife was standing near some one at a yard sale who picked up a purse for sale for a dollar and looked inside and found a wad of twenties... They might have had them all for a dollar just by paying the price and keeping their mouth shut... They walked right up to the owner and gave it to them without the least hesitation, and then bought the purse... If people are not often just, they are very often kind, but it is only kindness to ones self to do good and so avoid the constant chatter of consience...Admittedly, the less conscience is listened to the less it is heard, but it can still make a lot of racket in a decent brain...

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

I give what I can because it makes me feel rich, and because I fear that I may be denying Jesus Christ in the form of a human cur... The more revolting people may seem the more they need to be seen as a human being, and I look them in the eye, will take them by the hand, and wish them well... If we cannot even look at them suffering their lives how will we ever care enough to help them... I almost gave a man the socks off my feet because it would have been nothing but something he had not... My wife let me know it would embarrass her and perhaps him, and was afraid I might find something in common with him and talk longer than she had time for... I just can't level a curse at my fellow human beings for what ever has resulted in their downfall... I fear for my downfall in a spiritual sense, that if I ever find myself with nothing to give, no ability to care that I will be all shell and no meat..

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@Fido,

That story suggests to me that the stallholder owned so many purses that she easily lost track of which one her stash was in. Or had so much dough that a wad of twenties she had put away for some use had been forgotten about. The "owner" has to be the stallholder I assume.

I was once walking through a meadow near a country lane when I came across three empty and well made metal boxes a little larger than a shoebox. They were open and there was a few papers in them. I took one home and showed it to my dear father who, after looking the items over, called the cops.

It seems there had been a bank heist in a town a few miles away and the tin boxes had contained thousands of pounds. I could do one of my fanciful descriptions of what one might get for a pound in those days but suffice to say it was quite a lot to a lad the age I was at the time. The thieves had thrown them into the meadow because the grass was long. Presumably they drove up the country lane for that reason. So it must have been in May or maybe June.

But the experience has caused me to ponder occasionally what I would do if I found such a box full up with twenties and it was on the News that it was the property of a well known bank.

1 Reply

@Fido,

I agree on trying to find the rightful owner, if it is possible. A personal item like a ring for instance, you can - as that person can describe it.

However, a dollar bill on the ground in some well traveled parking lot - how the heck do you find the rightful owner? If you started going up to each stranger and say did you lose a dollar - anyone could (and many would) heck yeah - there is no way to truely identify the real owner as who the heck would memorize the serial number on a buck they had in their pocket?

If it just isn't realistic in other words to find the rightful owner, then fine with pocketing it. Or if you feel guilty, hand it over to the ringing bell santa at the store.

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@hawkeye10,

DAVID wrote:

Definitionally, it cannot be "ALL about me" if someone else is involved.

hawkeye10 wrote:

If the motivation for doing something is all about you enjoyment or satisfaction then it is all about you. Plenty of guys have fucked women without a thought of the woman who was there in the room, she being a masturbation tool so far as he is concerned. If you did give money only because you wanted to have fun then it would have been no less "all about you" than are the encounters fore-mentioned.

Lemme add this, for additional clarification:
in this hedonic process (of years, decades n centuries)
some efforts have succeeded whereas others have failed.
Success is measured by the magnitude of creation of joy in targets of my choice.

Some efforts resulted in the targets literally leaping up in the air repeatedly, in joyful exclamation,
LITERALLY "jumping for joy" whereas other efforts resulted in no discernable effect (or negative effect).

The contrast in those different results indicate the targets were not mere "masturbation tools" as u put it.
Its more like gardening. The planted seed either germinates & flourishes, or it does not.

I am not Johnny Apple Seed, but I am David Serendipity Seed.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

As I understand the mechanics Dave the germination is more likely in the masturbation tool than in the jumping for joy model.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

I agree on trying to find the rightful owner, if it is possible. A personal item like a ring for instance, you can - as that person can describe it.

However, a dollar bill on the ground in some well traveled parking lot - how the heck do you find the rightful owner? If you started going up to each stranger and say did you lose a dollar - anyone could (and many would) heck yeah - there is no way to truely identify the real owner as who the heck would memorize the serial number on a buck they had in their pocket?

If it just isn't realistic in other words to find the rightful owner, then fine with pocketing it.

Or if you feel guilty, hand it over to the ringing bell santa at the store.

I agree with u fully, but if u feel "guilty" then u can leave it there
for discovery by the next person who does not feel guilty.

David

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

As I understand the mechanics Dave the germination
is more likely in the masturbation tool than in the jumping for joy model.

An effort at humor ?

I think the success rate is greater in the dissemination of cash.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

It's one of my nuanced convolutions as well.

1 Reply

@spendius,

U can sow England in Serendipities, if u r so inclined.
I will respect your territory.

David

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

That story suggests to me that the stallholder owned so many purses that she easily lost track of which one her stash was in. Or had so much dough that a wad of twenties she had put away for some use had been forgotten about. The "owner" has to be the stallholder I assume.

I was once walking through a meadow near a country lane when I came across three empty and well made metal boxes a little larger than a shoebox. They were open and there was a few papers in them. I took one home and showed it to my dear father who, after looking the items over, called the cops.

It seems there had been a bank heist in a town a few miles away and the tin boxes had contained thousands of pounds. I could do one of my fanciful descriptions of what one might get for a pound in those days but suffice to say it was quite a lot to a lad the age I was at the time. The thieves had thrown them into the meadow because the grass was long. Presumably they drove up the country lane for that reason. So it must have been in May or maybe June.

But the experience has caused me to ponder occasionally what I would do if I found such a box full up with twenties and it was on the News that it was the property of a well known bank.

I think it may have belonged to a mother who was losing her cookies as well as her cash...

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@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

I agree on trying to find the rightful owner, if it is possible. A personal item like a ring for instance, you can - as that person can describe it.

However, a dollar bill on the ground in some well traveled parking lot - how the heck do you find the rightful owner? If you started going up to each stranger and say did you lose a dollar - anyone could (and many would) heck yeah - there is no way to truely identify the real owner as who the heck would memorize the serial number on a buck they had in their pocket?

If it just isn't realistic in other words to find the rightful owner, then fine with pocketing it. Or if you feel guilty, hand it over to the ringing bell santa at the store.

Every one has lost a dollar, and some people now adays would have to have more cause than a dollar to talk to strangers... We fear to lose our cash, but many of us have lost their trust, and should fear to lose their souls...

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I've been tested on this one and found worthy.

When I was just a kid, some guy came around our neighborhood offering pony rides.

The pony jiggled, and the driver's wallet came loose and fell to the street.

I raced my friend to the wallet and won. Within the wallet was more money than I had ever seen.

I chased the pony driver down and returned his wallet.

He gave me a $5 reward in a day when you could buy a candy bar for five cents, a piece of pizza for twelve cents and a comic book for 13 cents.

It was all good, which is as it always will be when you do the right thing.

4 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

I had an odd experience concerning honesty v. larceny, to wit:
I was 13 years old and walking toward a bus stop,
contemplating the possibility of misappropriating something.
( I don t remember what it was.) Quite unexpectedly, I had
something of an epiphany of the repulsive, disgusting evil
of taking someone else's property. It grossed me out.

That was the end of THAT; never again.

I subsequently had a Christmas job at a major department store.
I was sent to a closet or storeroom, to unpack exotic leather wallets.
I saw that MANY of them were missing from empty boxes.
I reported the missing wallets to the Buyer; he was not interested.
I was in need of a new wallet; it had worn out, somewhat.
I was completely alone for quite a while (maybe 2 or 3 hours?),
but I was not tempted to take another one.

David

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

He gave me a $5 reward in a day when you could buy a candy bar for five cents, a piece of pizza for twelve cents and a comic book for 13 cents.

A creative writer Finn, seeking to amuse his readers, would take an opportunity like that to delineate the character of a young lad of the time by employing the literary device of bathos.

He gave me a $5 reward and in those days you could buy..........(make list of a rascal's priorities) and ending with " and there was 2 cents left over to get Priscilla Huffington to show you her pee-pee. "

1 Reply

In January of 1984, I went to India, at the behest of my dry cleaner.

I did not use WALLETS, but I threw around clear plastic Zip Lock Freezer Bags
stuffed with their Rupees and with a Milky Way bar, for ballast.

This was hedonism, rendered unexpectedly,
while riding by in a cab (not charity). It was fun.
A Rupee was a big deal over there. Thay worked hard to get them.

David

0 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

I've been tested on this one and found worthy.

When I was just a kid, some guy came around our neighborhood offering pony rides.

The pony jiggled, and the driver's wallet came loose and fell to the street.

I raced my friend to the wallet and won. Within the wallet was more money than I had ever seen.

I chased the pony driver down and returned his wallet.

He gave me a $5 reward in a day when you could buy a candy bar for five cents, a piece of pizza for twelve cents and a comic book for 13 cents.

It was all good, which is as it always will be when you do the right thing.

Oh, swell. An admonition to "do the right thing" from a bloody-mouthed pig who couldn't find which moral direction was up with a telescope.

1 Reply

Karma test: what do you do when you find a fat wallet?

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