A bit after New Year's, I had to take the dogs out on a late night walk. I usually am responsible for the late night walks because 1) I don't want wife to walk them herself or 2) walk them with me because I saw that weird movie "The Brave One" where Jodie Foster and her boyfriend get robbed and beaten in the middle of the night. Granted, in the movie they were walking through Central Park after sundown which is like asking a Jew to walk through the bad part of Jerusalem after sundown. It's just not good for anyone. We, one the other hand, live in Murray Hill which is mostly compiled of two types of residents: 1) Old people who never made their way to Florida and 2) All the people who work at the corner supermarkets in Manhattan, live HERE!
So I take the dogs out on this cold evening and as I step outside our doors, I notice a wallet. I pick up this wallet and there was a wad of $50, $20 and $5 bills in it. I counted it and it was about $350 or so. I looked at the ID and noticed that the man had multiple ID's. One of them declared him a "Retired Officer of the New York State Police Department". I looked around his business cards to find his number to call him and let him know. Sure enough, I find his apartment number on a card, I call and leave a message with the "room mate" and about 10 minutes later, the "retired officer" calls me back. We met outside my apartment about 10 minutes later and he thanked me and all was well.
I have been a firm believer of Karma. Maybe not in the sense that some hippie folks think of Karma, but I do think that if you do good, good will be done to you. This has happened a lot in my life. When I gave an assisting hand, another hand came to assist me in time of need. I am not sure if the help I got would have been there regardless of my previous actions, but I would like to think it was only because I did something good myself.
So lastnight the In-Laws came to visit. My wife's parents are from Sweden and I only seen them about a handful of times. I usually still get nervous around them because lets be honest, their daughter (the youngest) is thousands of miles away from them, living in a big city (total opposite of sweet ol' hillside Sweden) and lets face it, she lives with me. I would be nervous if I was her parents.
So yesterday I decided to be the good son-in-law and go meet them in JFK and ride the train back with them. I took the E Train to JFK which may I add, was scary as hell. It reminded me of that weird feeling I got in my pants when I was 11 years old and got on the Space Mountain ride in Disneyland. I felt like I was going to fall out, and die. That is how the E Train feels. It flies at speeds that even the idiots on "World's Fastest Police Chases" won't dare. Even worse is the fact that it takes turns like as if the Blues Brothers are driving it. I can swear we were riding only on one side of the wheels at some of those turns.
I made a decision to bring the in-laws home safe and spare them the nightmare that is called the "E". They would never forgive me if this was to be their first experience after a 22 hour trip. So we get into a taxi and I sit shot gun. I could have probably squeezed in the back with them but they have been sitting on a plane for many hours and can probably use the space. We chat about this and that. Airline food and in-flight movies. Thirty minutes later we are in front of the apartment. At a desperate attempt to still impress them (even after I already married their daughter and if they dislike me now won't make a bit a difference) I go and reach for my wallet to pay the driver. While still trying to play golden boy, I hand the driver the money while attempting to rush out to be nice enough to open the door in the back for the mother-in-law and help her out. I grab their bags from the trunk and insist on bringing them up the flight of stairs myself.
This morning I get a call from the Taxi and Limo Commission. The good man (a.k.a. cab driver) apparently found the wallet of yours truly in the cab after driving back to JFK. I was in shock because I thought I gave him a crappy tip and I was sure he would chuck the wallet once realizing that I tipped him like he was a shitty waiter at TGIFridays.
I am going to meet him later this afternoon in front of my apartment to get back my wallet.
I am also going to go ahead and pull out some cash and give the man some bills for going out of his way to bring me back the wallet. Lastly, I am giving him some props.
Since arriving in New York I had to deal with some shitty taxi drivers. Rude, obnoxious, some smelly, some loud on their headsets, some were downright complaining when I tipped them less then what they wanted. One driver, I shit you not, asked for the tip up front. I got in the cab and he said "You pay first because I had people run out of taxi without paying!" I figured, fair enough. I handed him my card only to have him look back at me and go "How much you want me to add for tip?"....I was like "You kidding me? get me to my destination, and if you deserve it, I will give you something in cash! So to have my cab driver lastnight go out of his way to bring me my wallet today and be nice enough to not throw it in the East River with all the other garbage, I give him a big "You The Mutha'ucking Man!".
Thank you Mr. Taxi Driver from Terminal 1. You saved me the hassle of re-ordering credit cards (which usually would not be too much trouble except the fact that Wifey is having her birthday this weekend and I have yet to complete my shopping. Without a wallet, this would have been disastrous).
No comments:
Post a Comment