The Writer’s Coin

Here is an interesting post asking the question “What would you do if you found a wallet with a lot of money and no ID?”

There are all kinds of moral implications, obviously, but since something similar had just happened to me, I wanted to discuss some of the other issues involved.

I found a wallet in a cab. It was a Prada wallet and the business card inside read “Lawyer.” So right away I know this person has money. There is about $60 inside. And right away, of course, I’m thinking “Find the person and return it.”

Yes, it’s the right thing to do. But I know what it’s like to lose a wallet and the psychological pain that one goes through is horrible. So I want to spare this person said pain.

And then for a split second it hit me, “Keep it. Keep the sixty bucks. She can afford it. Throw the wallet away somewhere. Bury it in a field. Tie it to a brick and throw it into the Chicago river. No one will know.”

That passed real fast. So I returned it and as I was on my way to meet up with the person (she hadn’t even realized it was lost), my imagination is racing with possibilities, the one I liked best was this one:

Maybe she will be so overjoyed that she will ask me where I was going when I found the wallet and I’ll tell her to an interview for a job and she’ll say what line of work and I’ll say “advertising” (this was a few months ago) and she’ll mention she has some friends high up in the industry and that she would like to help and she’ll immediately sense that I have the aptitude and creativity for the job so she’ll call up her friend and tell her she just knows I should be hired. She can see it inside me and I must get in and interview ASAP.

My imagination, it’s been said, can move mountains.

So what happened?

She drove up in a pimped out, brand-new convertible, and waved $20 bucks in my face saying “Please, please, take some money.”

What I didn’t like:
- That she said “some money.”
- That she did it to make herself feel better.

So of course I took it and now I have a pretty decent story to tell. And $20 to spend.

Tags: finding money, honesty, lost wallet