Lost and found department

I’ve been taking the train to work for a few years now, and I’ve become very good at timing my arrival at the station to within a minute or two of the train’s appearance. As I was walking up one day early last week, I spotted something glinting on the ground and scooped it up as the train arrived. It was the gold bracelet you see above. On the trip downtown, I thought about how best to return it to its owner. The transit system does maintain a lost and found, but turning it over to them would have meant relying on the honesty of every employee with access to the lost and found box. Instead, I resolved to post a sign at the station where I found it. If nobody claimed the bracelet, I could keep it with a clear conscience. I consulted some co-workers who know more about jewelry than me, and they noticed that it was a tennis bracelet, studded with tiny diamonds along its entire length. That confirmed my inkling that it was more than a piece of costume jewelry. Before I left work, I registered a special e-mail address and printed up a little sign (in Goudy Old Style, because it felt somewhat anachronisticly subversive to post an e-mail address in an old style typeface). I taped it up at the station that evening. Then I waited.

The sign stayed up all week, and I began to wonder if I was going to hear from anyone. It disappeared on Monday, yet still there were no messages. The next day, however, I finally received an e-mail from the bracelet’s owner. She described the piece to a T, so there was no doubt that she was telling the truth. I was busy the next couple days, but I called her on Thursday to arrange a time to make the return. So, on my lunch break yesterday, I hiked over to the downtown mall and reunited the bracelet with its grateful owner. Hooray for happy endings.