Restoration

My faith in the general population of Boston has been restored. Not that it was damaged too much, but little things like pushy folks on the sidewalk and inconsiderate commuter rail riders (loud cell phone talkers, personal space invaders) were whittling at it.

These two incidents recently buoyed my faith.

This morning when I got to the office and reached down for my badge that opens the doors, it was missing. I gained entry from a colleague who came along, and when I got to my desk, I called corporate security to deactivate the badge. No sooner had I hung up with security, than I received a call from an outside line. Someone had found my badge, called my company, and was routed to me. He asked me where I was and told me he would bring it to me (about 4 blocks). When I met him in the lobby a few minutes later, I learned he had worked at my company for 12 years, but had been laid off a few weeks ago. If I had been laid off by a company and found someone's badge that was lucky enough to still be employed there, I don't know if I'd go to the trouble this guy did. I would have just dropped the badge in a mailbox, as the badge states postage is guareanteed. Well done, sir.

On Friday, Feburary 13, I was packing my things to head home from the office and noticed a jewelry case I had on my desk. It was from when I bought Colleen a piece of jewelry this fall for our 10-year anniversary, and I brought the case back to the office to give back to the jeweler. He is a one-man shop, so I thought he'd appreciate recouping a few bucks. But, he has since moved his jewelry shop to the North Shore, so the box sat on my desk for a couple of months. I thought I'd perform a little experiment. I put the box in my coat pocket and walked to the train. I was the first on one train car and before I sat in my seat, I tossed the box on the seat across the aisle from me to make it look like someone had dropped a piece of jewelry they had planned to give as a Valentine's Day present.

A guy walked up the aisle, passed the seat, but did a double-take and went back to the seat with the jewelry box on it. I pretended I was absorbed in a book. He slid across the seat to hide the box between his leg and the wall and never touched it. I thought he was going to wait until I got off to open it and discover if he had made a lucky find. The box had a clasp on it that required two hands to open it, so it would have been easy to tell if he was secretly trying to open it. He wasn't. When the conductor came to collect fares, the man calmly informed the conductor he had found the jewelry box on the seat, and handed it to him. The conductor opened the box and found that it was empty. They both laughed a bit and that was it. Very honest of this gentleman. If I found a jewelry box on the train, the curiosity would no doubt get the best of me. I know that I would not keep it, but I would need to look. Would you?