Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Life in a cliched hypothetical situation

Sometimes, in the mornings, I like to go for a walk or a run.

Sunday morning, I was out for a walk, and I found a wallet on the ground.

In it was:
  • A barely-expired non-driver ID
  • A bank card
  • A little loose change
Since I live in a small town and had her address, it was easy to find the young woman who'd lost the wallet on Facebook. In fact, we have one mutual friend. I sent her a message:
[Name]-
I was walking on [my street] in [my town] this morning and found a wallet with your ID and bank card in it. How can I get it back to you?
Best,
[bzzzzgrrrl]
Three days later, she responded:
my phone # is [phone number] and i had $98 in there too. thank you so much, you're a life saver.
Followed semi-quickly by another message:
ive been struggling without my wallet and i assume someone took the money right? not you but some1 who saw it took the $ then ditched on [my street] i bet. That was all the $ i had until the 21st. and i jst learned that im pregnet so the timing sux but im greatful you at least found it. thank you from the bottom of my heart. i can meet you in keene, jst txt cuz i dont have $ for anymore mins. k hun thanx once again!!!!
So.

Obviously, I would have mentioned that there was cash if I'd found cash. I didn't.

Four things:
  1. What kind of jackass takes $98 but leaves the wallet on the ground? Stupid litterers.
  2. Should I be worried that she's going to assume I took the money, because, see #1 above?
  3. What are the odds this is a scam of some kind, because, see #1 and #2 above?
  4. Is it ridiculously cynical of me to even think of #3?

3 comments:

Joe said...

I think if you keep the electronic conversations to a minimum (do it through Facebook and not your phoen) and arrange to meet up and give her the wallet quickly, you'll be OK.
Not wrong to be a little suspicious (that's just the old cynical journalist in you, and I applaud it).

Anonymous said...

I was already thinking 1, 2, and 3 before getting to the end of your story. No good deed goes unpunished. If I had found the wallet, I would have sent it back to the owner anonymously.

Cousin Mouse said...

So, what happened? My concern is that she's angling for a handout. She's certainly going all out to sound pathetic.