Lost and found in SF

Thursday night I was wandering around SF with a friend who was in town for a training (she was born and raised in SF, but has been in NC for almost 20 years). After going up Coit Tower (neither of us had before!), we wandered up the curvy part of Lombard Street on our way to a restaurant (Alive on the “freeway” portion of Lombard), we noticed a purse at the top. A few folks were nearby and we asked if it was theirs. They said is was not.

Karen said, “We’re good Samaritans, the next person may not be.” So I picked it up and looked inside. We found a wallet with ID, credit cards, and money. We decided we would go to the restaurant, then call the police and/or look for a hotel key or some other identification (the ID said the owner, Jennifer, was from the UK, so we were hoping we’d find a more local contact).

Once we got to the restaurant, we found a cell phone inside. One of the first numbers in its phone book was “Home” so I tried it. Well, I got her mom out of bed in the wee hours of the morning in England. Turns out Jennifer was a flight attendant for an airline, and was on a couple day layover in SF. Mom didn’t know any of the people she was staying with.

Meanwhile, Karen had been searching the purse and found a hotel card-key. We called the hotel, informed them of the situation, and asked if they could keep an eye out for her. I left my cell number.

Within about 20 minutes, I got a call on my cell and a tearfully happy Jennifer said she’d be right over to pick it up. She showed up with a couple other folks from her flight crew, and thanks us profusely (“she’s a good hugger” Karen said after they left). They offered to buy us a drink, but we were about ready to go (Karen’s on east coast time, and ready to get back to her hotel room). They bought us dessert, and left quite relieved.

Lots of fun. It always feels good when you do the right thing.

One lesson we took from this: If you’re traveling, leave an obvious note in your purse/wallet/etc. with phone numbers of the people you are traveling with. In this case, it might have helped us to connect a bit faster.

PS. It turns out the police aren’t much help with this these days. They told Jennifer that she would have to call the local station, and since she didn’t know where she lost her purse, this would have been several stations. You’d think with computers and all these days they could centralize data of lost and found items, particularly items that include photo IDs with them.