A good deed should be the reward in and of itself…
And yet, not 100% because I am quite shallow.
This afternoon I spied a cell phone in the grass between the sidewalk and street while I was out running. While I did think about leaving it so the owner could backtrack to it, that was outweighed by the scattered rainstorms and the potential for kids deciding to play street hockey with it. So, I picked it up and took it home.
Tried to call the phone to leave a voice mail for the owner, thinking they might be checking it remotely. Great idea except that the voice mail wasn’t activated. No “Home” or “Mom” or “ICE” in the contact list. Put a found posting on Craigslist and a note at the bus stop where I found it. Sent a text message to a female contact in the recent calls list. (Dunno, just didn’t want to send a text to one of his potenially whackjob friends – mainly because I know how many whackjobs I have in my own contact list.) And waited.
The phone rang and I answered – the owner calling from a friend’s phone! He apparently parks his car right near the bus stop and dropped/kicked it out of the car. Got the address for the drop off – he said, “You can drop it off at any hour, someone will be up.” AKA, we have a house of half office workers, half restaurant industry. :) I was on my way out, no big deal to make a 1/4 block detour to drop it off.
And this is where shallow comes in. The voice was of a 6′2″ Tennessse farm boy between the ages of 22 to 35. When I dropped off the phone, I was met by a lovely Indian lady at the door (wife/girlfriend/landlady/roommate) who seemed to be aware of the situation and happily accepted the phone (or had no idea and thought, “Hey, free cell phone!”)
So the phone was returned. (Hopefully to the right address.) But dammit, I wanted to see the face that went with the voice!!
But the phone is back with it’s rightful owner (in theory) and that has to be good enough. And I can live with that.