Not so long ago and for no particular reason, I decided I needed 69 rental vehicles.
I want you to take a moment and put yourself in my shoes. You've rented a car before. You know what it's like to stand at the counter while someone in a rumpled polo shirt stares at a monochromatic screen that makes you think about doing spelling drills while listening to a dot-matrix printer spit out its ratatatat innards in the form of a rental contract. Go through the whole process. Initial in five places. Sign your name at the bottom. Pick up the two sets of keys linked together by an apparently indestructible coil of small-caliber steel cable. Now, turn toward the door to walk out.
Now, do that 68 more times.
Kind of makes you wish there were a hammer lying around so you could hit yourself a few times in the eye, doesn't it?
Oddly enough, it wasn't that bad. Sure, I spent the better part of a work day signing and separating documents that come in triplicate, but it was a much smoother process than I expected it to be. Between the mass of steel and plastic that required moving and the soulless mouth-breathers I expected to find at the counter, my expectations were admittedly very low. Besides, you do anything 69 times, and you have to factor in at least 5% time loss due to giggling.
It turns out returning 69 rental vehicles was a little more challenging. I'll spare you the peaks and valleys of the whole process. Let it suffice to say one of the vehicles I rented was parked in a very safe and sheltered and expensive parking spot for a week or so longer than it needed to be, and it got returned well after the other 68.
When I finally wrangled #69 (god only knows what keyword searches are going to start leading users here now) back to the ranch, I cleaned out roughly one carload of stuff that didn't need to go back with the car. In addition to about 15 pounds of trash and about $5000 in telecommunications equipment, I scavenged, tucked into the pocket on the back of the driver's seat, a wallet.
The wallet contained pretty standard wallet contents: driver's license, photo of The Beloved, credit cards, receipts, old lottery tickets, about $50 in cash.
I'm going to let you in on a secret: I'm prone to some moral ambiguities. The wallet sat on my desk for a couple of weeks before I figured out what to do with it. I checked to see if any of the lottery tickets were winners. At one point, I even had a $10 bill in my hand because I was short of cash, and I considered buying lunch with it. In the end, I mailed, intact, it back to the name and address on the driver's license, and I promptly forgot about it.
A few days later, I received a package in the mail that contained four items:
1 - a collection of poetry authored by the owner of the wallet
2 - a card trumpeting the women of SGI-USA (nowhere near the same vein as Playboy's Girls of the SEC issue) and urging me to add items to my "Bucket List" amidst a sunflower motif
3 - a $20 bill
4 - a greeting card featuring the Times Mirror Hall of North American Cultures at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County with the following handwritten message.
"Dear Paul,
I received my wallet last evening when I returned home. To say I was surprised is an understatement. What a great blessing! I don't know how I could adequately thank you for what you've done. Your kindness and generosity will always be in my memory bank.
There were a few ironies connected with this. I lost the wallet after attending an inauguration event on the 20th of Jan. I received it back from you on the 20th of Feb. You sent a very nice card with a sunflower print on the front. My wife, who was entertaining friends who happen to be Buddhist (SGI), like us, had just finished admiring and discussing a card with a sunflower. Lastly, my wife was just diagnosed with breast cancer. The artist of your card came up with the inspiration while undergoing chemotherapy.
So...you see, this benefit was far reaching.
Hopefully, I'll get a chance to cross paths with you one day. If you are ever out in Los Angeles, please give me a call. I'll try and contact you if and when I'm in the VA area.
Thanks again from the bottom of my heart.
PS - $20 for the postage."
It has been a few days since I first read this card and the accompanying poetry, and I still haven't settled on what I think of it. Don't get me wrong. It's a sweet card, and it sure beats the grand silence I got from the last guy to whom I returned a wallet. (In that case, I had found it on the floor of a cab in 2004 with nothing but a couple of credit cards and a receipt for a $1400 dinner at Charlie Palmer's.) I can't help but think, however, that it is sweeter than befits the occasion.
I've lost my wallet before, and it's a real pain in the ass to cancel credit cards and replace insurance cards and driver's licenses. I would love to avoid all of that hassle, and I would be effusive in expressing my gratitude to anyone who swooped in and saved me from it.
Let's be honest. I sat on this wallet for weeks. That's not a swoop-in kind of timeframe. I figure the best you can say for taking that long to return a wallet is that it puts to rest the concerns about when you should expect to see evidence of identity theft start popping up.
Of course, I'm an unrepentant curmudgeon. Perhaps my sense of an appropriate default setting for expressions of gratitude is lower than the general public's. Still, I think that's a sweeter response than I deserve for letting a guy's wallet sit on my desk for a few weeks before getting it back to him.
All that aside, it's refreshing to get a card in the mail from a stranger saying nice things.
Title - Artist
Wiggle It - 2 in a Room
Big Balls - AC/DC
My Same - Adele
Straight to Hell - Lily Allen
My Girls - Animal Collective
If I Were a Boy - Beyonce
Fiery Crash - Andrew Bird
The World Turned Upside Down - Billy Bragg
Longneck Bottle - Garth Brooks
Funky President (People It's Bad) - James Brown
It's a Man's Man's Man's World - James Brown
A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
Save Me - Dave Matthews
Laundry Day - Dr. Horrible
Live and Let Die - Duffy
Dead on Arrival - Fall Out Boy
Right Round - Flo Rida
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa - Peter Gabriel and Hot Chip
Riding in My Car - Woody Guthrie
Football (It's the Sport of Kings) - Goldie Hawn and the Wildcats
How Do You Talk to an Angel? - The Heights
Mony, Mony - Billy Idol
Hot Tequila Brown - Jamiroquai
Rodeo Clowns - Jack Johnson
Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon
Just Dance - Lady Gaga
Seventeen - Ladytron
I'm On a Boat - The Lonely Island
Jizz in My Pants - The Lonely Island
Go-Getter Greg - Ludo
Dance Dance Dance - Lykke Li
Paper Planes - M.I.A.
My Old Man - Joni Mitchell
This Flight Tonight - Joni Mitchell
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik II. Romance - andante - Mozart
New Soul - Yael Naim
Take On Me - A.C. Newman
AC/DC Bag - Phish
Peter Theme - Prokofiev
Seventeen Years - Ratatat
Kelly's Hardware Store - Chris Rodriguez
More Than This - Roxy Music
Sugarking - Bob Schneider
Ring of Fire - Social Distortion
1969 - The Stooges
Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight - U2
Magnificent - U2
Moment of Surrender - U2
Honey Bee - Stevie Ray Vaughan
Heartless - Kanye West
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