Today I caught the bus to work and realised 35 minutes later I left my laptop at the bus-stop. Panicked, I jumped off the bus and anxiously called my husband declaring 'I have done something REALLY STUPID'! He quickly jumped in the car and drove to the bus-stop and let me know it wasn't there.
All the while I called a taxi to return home. (No point going to work without a laptop) the first two taxi's didn't turn up. My anxiety levels were rising. I called our local bus company (not a state run bus company):
Me: 'Hi there, I was at X bus-stop this morning and left my laptop bag behind - and it's not there now.. so that means that someone has picked it up between 8:10 and 8:40 - can you put a message out to the buses to ask if anyone has handed it in?'
Bus company man David: 'We don't waste our time chasing lost property lady. Sorry'
Me: 'I didn't lose a jumper, I've lost a laptop!' then I start to cry. I realise I have so many photos, so much work, so much everything. Waah.
Bus company man David: 'Sorry we don't have time or people to do that - people call us about musical instruments, handbags - we just don't have time'.
I called the police. They took all my details and were lovely. Suggested I call the bus company. I repeated the story above and even the policeman said 'that's a bit weak'.
Got home, hubby called the bus company too and got a lady - Samantha who did take his number and who did contact all the buses but alas nothing. I called my boss crying. He said 'Don't worry, look this happens and you have more than 50% chance you'll get it back, there's a lot of good people out there - but are you OK?'. Sweet - he was more worried about me than my laptop.
I felt so so sad. I was thinking of all the other stuff I'd rather lose than my laptop My wallet, my phone.. I said a few quiet prayers... I thought about what I would do if I found a laptop. Of course I would try and track down the owner.. but not everyone is like me...though hopefully most people are...
My hubby had taken to Facebook and our local buy/sell/swap page - even though it is against the rules and told everyone to keep an eye out or let us know if they may have picked it up. Many, many, MANY people liked it, bumped it, and some people even shared it on their own profiles. People are amazing like that. My stupid mistake and were rallying around us, complete strangers trying to help. My husband was completely staggered by the generosity of spirit.
Then a message came through on my email on my phone: 'Missing bag'. Some nice lady called Tamsin had picked up my laptop and taken it into work with her and emailed me (I luckily had some of my expense claims in my laptop bag!)
I was so frantically happy I couldn't even dial the numbers. I blabbered on her voicemail: 'Thank you, thank you - you have restored my faith in people'. Hubby and I decided after our manic morning we'd grab a bite of lunch at our local flower market which has a cafe... and I looked over and saw some gorgeous orchids 'I'm going to buy those for Tamsin' and I promptly did.
Tonight I was reunited with my laptop on Tamsin's return journey from the city and when I gave her the orchids she was touched and surprised 'I adore orchids!'. It was meant to be.
All night I've been singing to the Shirelle's melody 'Hey-la, hey-laaa my laptop's back!' (my boyfriend's back!). So what I learned today is there's a lot of decent and honest people out there. Thank goodness for that!
So I'm going to try and make a conscious efforts to do some good deeds - nothing hugely humanitarian - just small things like: buy coffee for workmates without them asking, taking in the neighbours garbage or something like this:
This book is on my list now!
Any good deed you've done or had done for you lately?
