I tend to find lost things on the sidewalk. I think it's because I'm always looking down as I walk. One of my proudest moments was in England when I saw a rogue ID on the sidewalk. I looked at the face of an older man, shrugged it off, but kept going. By the time I passed the bus stop, I saw a man who looked just like the one on the ID, so I went up to him and pointed where I last saw his face.
I think he mumbled something nice about Americans with a sort of surprised tone.
A similar thing happened with a woman with a scarf.
A rolled up pack of sixty pound notes.
Wow. I keep finding good things on the sidewalk.
This happened today while it was raining, talking to my mom on the phone. I stopped when I saw the back of what looked to be a credit card, and I looked around, before I stooped to pick it up. This has happened before. I've picked up things that have looked like cash or credit cards, and they'd turn out to be Abstinence Till Marriage (ATM, get it?) or Subway punch cards.
So imagine my surprise when this turned out to be an honest to gosh debit card with a name and a bank and everything? It was right there, right in front of a pair of stone steps leading to this one building. While my sense of right strongly told me that it was safe with me, my sense of danger was suddenly suspicious and I looked around to see if this was an action movie in the making*.
I did what any savvy adult would do. I told my mom.
—who made jokes about cashing it out. Not helpful. So while she started to tell me about the dangers of losing my own card—again, not helpful—I kept pivoting on the sidewalk as if "Earnest Pevensie" would come out of the woodwork with his handlebar mustache, dressed in a tweed blazer with elbow pads, and say "A ha! Jolly good! You found my card!"
Instead, I had my mom in my ear and the empty sidewalk in the rain.
Of course, a nice man from one of the balconies of this building saw my plight and asked me what I was doing.
"I found this card!" I called out. My mom was in my headphone telling me she knew about this.
"What's the name?" he asked, leaning onto the railing.
"Earnest Pevensie?" I asked, uncertain, brandishing the card as I looked up at him, feeling slightly dramatic with the balcony, the rain, my efforts at projecting my voice.
I felt like I was in a musical.
I studied his face to see if he'd claim it to be his. My mother told me that she didn't know who this Earnest Pevensie was, and was I only on the sidewalk? Was I talking to someone?
The man looked blank. "Does he live in this building?" He frowned, and I realized that I was living in an age where people generally didn't know their neighbors by name.
In my ear, my mom wanted to know what building?
With a yank, I pulled out her voice.
"Um," I said looking up at him, my hands still extended to him as if I planned to serenade him or perhaps confess undying feelings. "I guess..." I dropped my arms. "I guess I'll just take it with me?" I looked at him to see if this looked shady. He nodded that that seemed best. "Okay." I took a few steps, still unsure.
"But." I turned back, eagerly. Was he Earnest Pevensie and he set up this elaborate conversation to test my honesty?
I looked up at him, my eyes widening in the same vein as an anime character's. "Yes?"
He shrugged, taking a step back out of the rain's reach. "You might want to check the number on the back," he yelled. "Call the bank."
That sounded too practical for my already dramatic mind. My shoulders sagged. "Oh. Okay." I shuffled back into walking away. As I picked up my mobile's headphones, I could hear my mom still talking.
"—you now?" she was saying, and I attempted to catch her up, trudging the rest of the way to the apartment. But every person I passed, I social profiled to see if they looked like an Earnest Pevensie.
He could have a mustache. He could also be that cab driver pulled over. Or that man with that small Yorkie. Earnest would have a Yorkie.
I held the card aloft, as if I'd run into a frantic Earnest Pevensie, scouring the sidewalk, perhaps on his mobile, talking about how this card had all of the money he saved to purchase a plane ticket for Memorial Day.
That would suck.
But no such luck. The entire way, I didn't run into anyone looking or anyone remotely interested in the credit card I was flagrantly holding—a part of me worried about germs—so I just made my way to the apartment, where I would find scissors and cut up Earnest Pevensie's card into tiny pieces.
*Like that Will Smith movie where someone planted a chip on him when he was just shopping for lingerie or that Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie where he finds a cool smart phone?