Doing this got me thinking about incredibly kind things that people have done for me in the past that made a big impact, and in particular I remembered one story from last year.
I went to a design conference in Chicago last year for work, and Nick bought a plane ticket as well so that we could make a mini-vacation out of it. We got to Chicago in the morning but couldn't check into our hotel until that afternoon, so we went to the hotel first to drop off our luggage and not have to drag it around the city with us. If I remember correctly, you had to pay a certain holding fee per item, so we just left our main bag and carried our backpacks around with us.
We got into a cab and headed downtown to do a little shopping. We paid the guy, grabbed our bags and were on our way. And as soon as he drove away, I realized that I grabbed my backpack but absentmindedly left my purse. We never looked at the guy's name or cab number, and we didn't get a receipt. I couldn't tell you what nationality he was or what he looked like or even if the cab was yellow or green or some other color.
I commenced freaking out. I had my cell phone, money, debit cards, driver's license and everything else in that purse. I flashed forward to trying to check into the hotel with no form of identification, or worse, trying to board the plane to go home with no ID. I didn't think I'd be let into the conference, which was the whole reason my company sent me to Chicago in the first place. It was a total nightmare.
Oh yeah, and since we had just been flying, my cell phone was off because that's what they tell you to do. We couldn't even call it.
We didn't know if another passenger would find my purse and turn it into the cab driver, or whether the passenger would just keep it. And if it was turned over to the driver, then we didn't know if the driver would do the right thing or not.
Nick was great under pressure. He whipped out his cell phone and called the cab company to report my purse missing. There wasn't much they could do but put an alert out to all of the Chicago cabs to look for it, however it was just a little scrolling text alert across their rate machines so I didn't even know if the driver would notice. Nick then called the bank and had our debit cards cancelled. There wasn't much else we could do but hope that the hotel would still let us stay there and hope that there would be a way for me to still board the plane when we wanted to go home.
We called my cell phone plenty of times, but it was off and just went to voicemail. That afternoon we tried again, and miraculously the cab driver answered. He had just discovered it, turned it on and called a few of the numbers in my address book to report that he had it.
Nick spoke to the cab driver, and he was kind enough to drive clear across town to bring my purse right to our hotel. Everything was still in it, even all of the cash that I had been carrying. He didn't even charge us fare for him to drive from wherever he had been to where we were, although we did tip him pretty well.
Anyway, that whole ordeal could have completely ruined our trip, but instead, this honest man came in and saved the day. Cab drivers tend to have bad reputations for being rather sleazy, but this one definitely proved them wrong. And because of his actions, I actually think more highly of all cab drivers now, not just him.
So tell me, has anything like this ever happened to you? Any nameless good samaritans out there you'd like to send a shout-out to? And by the way, thanks if you already shared your story in the comments the first time around.
I went to a design conference in Chicago last year for work, and Nick bought a plane ticket as well so that we could make a mini-vacation out of it. We got to Chicago in the morning but couldn't check into our hotel until that afternoon, so we went to the hotel first to drop off our luggage and not have to drag it around the city with us. If I remember correctly, you had to pay a certain holding fee per item, so we just left our main bag and carried our backpacks around with us.
We got into a cab and headed downtown to do a little shopping. We paid the guy, grabbed our bags and were on our way. And as soon as he drove away, I realized that I grabbed my backpack but absentmindedly left my purse. We never looked at the guy's name or cab number, and we didn't get a receipt. I couldn't tell you what nationality he was or what he looked like or even if the cab was yellow or green or some other color.
I commenced freaking out. I had my cell phone, money, debit cards, driver's license and everything else in that purse. I flashed forward to trying to check into the hotel with no form of identification, or worse, trying to board the plane to go home with no ID. I didn't think I'd be let into the conference, which was the whole reason my company sent me to Chicago in the first place. It was a total nightmare.
Oh yeah, and since we had just been flying, my cell phone was off because that's what they tell you to do. We couldn't even call it.
We didn't know if another passenger would find my purse and turn it into the cab driver, or whether the passenger would just keep it. And if it was turned over to the driver, then we didn't know if the driver would do the right thing or not.
Nick was great under pressure. He whipped out his cell phone and called the cab company to report my purse missing. There wasn't much they could do but put an alert out to all of the Chicago cabs to look for it, however it was just a little scrolling text alert across their rate machines so I didn't even know if the driver would notice. Nick then called the bank and had our debit cards cancelled. There wasn't much else we could do but hope that the hotel would still let us stay there and hope that there would be a way for me to still board the plane when we wanted to go home.
We called my cell phone plenty of times, but it was off and just went to voicemail. That afternoon we tried again, and miraculously the cab driver answered. He had just discovered it, turned it on and called a few of the numbers in my address book to report that he had it.
Nick spoke to the cab driver, and he was kind enough to drive clear across town to bring my purse right to our hotel. Everything was still in it, even all of the cash that I had been carrying. He didn't even charge us fare for him to drive from wherever he had been to where we were, although we did tip him pretty well.
Anyway, that whole ordeal could have completely ruined our trip, but instead, this honest man came in and saved the day. Cab drivers tend to have bad reputations for being rather sleazy, but this one definitely proved them wrong. And because of his actions, I actually think more highly of all cab drivers now, not just him.
So tell me, has anything like this ever happened to you? Any nameless good samaritans out there you'd like to send a shout-out to? And by the way, thanks if you already shared your story in the comments the first time around.
5 Comments:
After paying a taxi driver with his credit card at the airport, my dad proceeded to exit the car without his entire wallet - and after calling the company, the cab driver actually drove BACK to our house (about 50 minutes from the airport) and left the wallet in our mailbox. How's that for service?
A very similar thing happened to me, except we were in Montreal, and Andrew left his wallet that had BOTH of our IDs and credit cards in it (since I didn't want to carry a purse he was holding my essentials). We ended up walking back to our hotel and getting my cell phone and calling the cab company (etc etc) and miraculously, the little wallet was returned to us by a gracious cabbie. Otherwise I don't know if they would have let us back into the states with no US ID!!!!! Oh my...this was about 4 years ago and I still get nervous thinking about how bad it could have been and how great it turned out in the end. Phew!
Gah... It just makes me want to puke thinking about it.
My sole experience with losing my purse was not so great. Probably because my purse was STOLEN in Paris! Luckily, it was stolen in the evening, so it was a workday for my dad back in the US and he was able to cancel / put fraud notices on everything and wire me emergency cash within a couple hours!
i heart you & nick. You guys are so good and lovely. karma, sister!
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