Tonight after dinner I was talking on the phone with my daughters, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk near the restaurant where I had eaten, because it's agin' the law to talk on the phone without a hands-free setup while driving in California. While pacing I happened upon a key, not a car key, but the kind that goes to a building door lock. It had nothing no identifying information on it, and I felt like I couldn't just pocket it without someone stressing out big time if it was a lost key, so I had to come up with a plan.
Being the kind of person who thinks way too much about this kind of thing, I analyzed the situation and my options for how to dispose of said key:
1) Try all the business doors and loot, loot, loot! This has obvious negative repercussions, and, lack of religious beliefs notwithstanding, I'm not the stealing kind.
2) Truck on over to Ace Hardware, where the key evidently was duplicated, which I brilliantly deduced by reading "Ace" on it. This would require either a) walking across the street, which I think also is against the law in California and at any rate would take longer than just driving over there (no joke -- I tried it once), or b) driving there -- but that felt like just a bit more than I was willing to do, even given my strong feelings that I needed to do *something*. Plus, I doubt they would know to whom it belonged, so that seemed like a dead end.
3) Keep the stupid thing and not worry about it. I think I've already established that this was not an option I considered for very long.
4) Toss it through the mail slot of the door in front of which I found it with the hope that it either belongs to that business, or that they would find the rightful owner.
In the end I opted for number 4. What would you have done? Was it a copout and did I only succeed in making it someone else's problem? Genny suggested I return during business hours to inquire about whether the key made it home, which I thought was a good idea.
3 comments:
Few years back my dad drove off with my car keys on the trunk of his car. When we realized that they probably fell off somewhere along his route and we still couldn't find them, we went to the police station where someone had returned them.
Of course that was a small town experience.
I probably would have gone with #4. The problem is that it's hard to find the rightful owner. The nearest business is the most likely place where the owner might go asking. I think one has a moral obligation to try to return them, but the amount of effort should be tempered by the likelihood of success.
I think you did the right thing.
I had a similiar situation last week while walking the dogs. I came acrossed a some cash on the sidewalk. I didn't stop to count it, but I saw a $10 and a $5 bill in the wod. Based on its position on the side walk, I assumed that it probably belonged to the owner of the house that it was in front of and not someone just walking by. I really don't know for sure.
They had a clothes pin on their front door, so I attached it to the door using that.
Part of me wonders if it really wasn't their cash, and they have no idea why this money magically appeared on their door. Did I just give them the burdon of a mistery to figure out? I'll ask them next time I walk by and they're outside. ;-)
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