I found a wallet, guy wanted to reward me, I said donate to ACLU instead

[Ian David]

Poll question: I found a wallet, guy wanted to reward me, I said donate to ACLU instead

I found a wallet belonging to a college kid who was on Spring Break in Miami.

When I returned it to him, he was very grateful-- for one thing, it had his I.D. in it, along with the I.D. of his older friend (over 21) that he must have been holding for him as a favor.

He told me I had "single-handedly saved his vacation."

He had gone swimming on the beach with the wallet in his pocket, and I found it dragging along the bottom in the surf three days later and four blocks away.

When he wanted to give me a reward, I told him to donate it to The ACLU instead, and I gave him my ACLU card.

He promised he would do it.

What do you think the odds are?
He's from Maryland, his dad is a cop, and his mom kept using words like "miracle" and "blessing."

The most extreme scenario would be if he was a freeper right-wing nut and hated the ACLU. Do you think he would do it even then, especially since he promised?

[Zuni]

1. Go Clark/Boxer!

you should have taken the cash and donated it yourself.

[Mutley]

2. other...

maybe you shoulda taken his reward and donated FOR him....

[demnan]

3. I picked "sucker"

If you had accepted the money you could have given it to the ACLU yourself.

[Ian David]

5. Well, I thought it would mean more if he did it himself

I guess I could wait a while and politely follow-up with a phone call to his mom and ask if he'd kept his promise.

And then there's always that photo I took of the I.D. he was holding in his wallet for his older friend. It must be his cousin, because the two photos look very much alike.

[yardwork]

11. This is a great story! LOL!

You did the right thing. Even if he doesn't donate, he'll remember the whole thing. He'll remember all his life that a decent guy returned his wallet and asked him to donate to the ACLU.

The actual donation is immaterial. You just gave the ACLU a priceless public relations gift.

[Lisa]

14. and even if he doesn't remember ...

... if he tells people about it, many of them probably will make that association in their minds. Great point, yardwork! Even people who've had their views of the ACLU skewed by right-wing talk radio, and think of liberals as naive do-gooders, would not like to see themselves as taking advantage. (Unless they amuse themselves by rolling Girl Guides for the cookie money, etc.)

[rfranklin]

4. On the other hand....

you could have accepted his gratuity and sent it to the ACLU yourself.

[Ellen Forradalom]

6. The one time I found a wallet

I turned down money and asked for a beer instead.

Give them the satisfaction of expressing their joy, but don't take the cash which they presumably need.

[Lisa]

7. it's a karma thing ...

Sometimes you just have to shrug. Sure, there are people around who don't have much of a conscience (or can rationalize breaking promises even if they see themselves as highly moral). But you've done your bit to make this a nicer world.

It would be interesting if this situation provoked any conversation with his parents and friends. (If, for example, he mentioned it to a prospective girlfriend, she might end up learning quite a lot about him by what he eventually decided to do. So your good deed might have all kinds of unforseen ripple effects.)

I've used charities as "collection agencies" in the past, too. Recently there was a situation on eBay where someone refused to refund my payment after the purchased item still hadn't arrived after 3 months. I suspected that he was panicking because he had really needed the money and didn't think through the implications of selling the same thing to two different people! Anyway, the trouble of tracking down and prosecuting him (plus the fact it was starting to make me feel bitter) would just not be worthwhile ... so I told him that I would like him to give the money to the UNICEF tsunami fund, instead. I figured that at the very least, if he's a right-winger, the UN connection will bug him ... and he'd have to be a total dork to brag about skimping out on starving kids.

[Ian David]

8. I thought about saying donate to The National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce

But I decided that would be pushing my luck.

[Lisa]

9. I like your style!

Would have been funny to see the look on his face.



By the way, I had a weird thing happen a couple of years ago when I found a guy's wallet and got in touch with him using a paycheck stub and some business cards that were in it. After I'd confirmed it was him, I told him what plastic and bills were in it -- and darned if he didn't jump in and say, "But I had $58 in there -- I wonder what happened to the other $10?" And then he gave me an accusing silence.

I was tempted to mess with his head and put in $20 of my own money, just to see what would happen ... but by then I was annoyed at him, and figured that he'd interpret it as an admission of "guilt" anyway. So I treated myself to lunch with my $20.

[Ian David]

10. I would have said, "Oops, I mis-counted. It's actually $38."

Now, shut-up, or I might count again and only find $28.00

[MissB]

13. Isn't that amazing?

I had a large bag dumped in my driveway last month and found some identifying paper inside. It took me three calls to track down the owner, and when she came to pick it up, she started asking *me* about all the stuff that was missing. :wtf:

Karma. I figure she used up some by not being appreciative.

[mdmc]

12. you did your part

good karma...
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