Boston Saga, Part 2: Lost and Found

As I crossed to street to greet Honor (in Harvard Square), my wallet slipped out of my back pocket. Honor saw it fall, and immediately let me know. I retrieved it and, genius that I am, I put it back in the same pocket. We headed off, leaving Harvard Square to go to Honor's dorm. We decided to take the scenic route through Harvard Yard (where, surprisingly, no cars were parked). About ten minutes into our trek, I realized that I had once again lost my wallet. Leaving my bags with Honor, I retrace my steps hoping to find my wallet where I had dropped it. After a fruitless search, I returned to where Honor was waiting, and enlisted her help in going over our steps again and adding a second pair of eyes to the search. Again, we found nothing. I had been in Cambridge for less than an hour and already lost my wallet. Unbelievable.

Upon reaching Honor's dorm, I called the Harvard Police and the Cambridge Police to let them know I had lost my wallet. I described it, and then left my name and cell number in case it turned up. I also cancelled my credit card. Still, I was thinking about what else was in my wallet: cash, some gift cards, my student ID, and my driver's license (which incidently has my SSN on it). It's actually amazing to me how much of my life is inside my wallet. So there I was in Cambridge with no way to prove who I was and about $1.50 to my name. Thankfully I was with Honor. She was very helpful, understanding, and supportive. I can't imagine what I would do if I had lost my wallet while travelling/staying on my own.

As the weekend progressed with no word from the police, I really began to worry. Not only would it be a hassle to replace my various IDs and such, I could easily become a victim of identity theft. Ironically, I had been reading all about phishing and online identity theft (for my Cyberlaw paper) throughout my trip.

Then Saturday night, I got a call from my mom. She had received a call from the Harvard police that my wallet had been found. (The call actually came on Thursday afternoon. My mom was out of town at the time, but my dad was home. He has a habit of never answering the phone, but I don't know why he didn't call be after hearing the message (assuming he even listened to the message, that is).) Interoffice communication must have broken down, and they ended up calling my mom instead of me. I got in touch with the Detective who had called my mom, and picked up my wallet Sunday morning. It was completely in tact, cash and all.

So this little crisis had a happy ending, and I was only inconvenienced for a few days. I'm not sure who found my wallet and turned it into the Harvard police, but this is proof that there are good people out there. While it's unfortunate that this happened, at least it's reaffirmed by belief in the goodness of human nature.

*Note: My trip to Boston was actually really wonderful, despite the impression you might get from reading the first two posts about the Boston Saga. I'm just retelling events in a more or less chronological fashion, and as you can see things got off to a bit of a rocky start.