| Why, you ask? Let me tell you why...Earlier this evening/last night, I finally ventured out of the apartment for the first and only time of the day. I was headed to the bank to deposit my paycheck from last Friday, and to pick up the pizza I'd ordered 15 minutes prior to venturing outside.As I reached down to get a deposit envelope from the ATM, I noticed a cell phone sitting neatly atop the ATM, right underneath the screen. The only person in sight was a gentleman sitting in his car, parked right in front of the bank. After making my deposit (and sparking myself on the metal frame of the ATM), I picked up the phone and asked the gentleman in the car if he'd seen anybody else at the machine prior to my arrival.
He said he had not. After a brief discussion with the man in the car about the phone, I decided to try and call someone on the phone list. To my dismay, I found that the majority of the contacts were in Spanish.
I began to fear the worst, as my Spanish is pretty limited. Hola, buenos dias, buenos tardes, buenos noches, si, me llamo, carne asada, taco, burrito, and no comprende is about as much Spanish as I know. Despite that, I called the first number on the contact list, and was glad to find that the person on the other end greeted me with, "Hello?" Turns out the gentleman on the other end of the line had no idea who the phone belonged to, but thought that his wife might.
Awesome! So I waited for him to call me back, and sure enough, his wife had an answer for me. So she knew who the gentleman was. I decided to check the recent call list on the phone, and dialed the first number on there. "Hello?" Was the greeting, only this time it was a lady and she had a noticeable Mexican accent to her English. I was soon greeted by a second "Hello," this time in an equally accented gentleman's voice.
"Hi, I found this phone at the bank, and I was wondering if..."
"Oh, yes. It's my phone!"
Wow, that was easy, I thought, "OK, I'm still near the bank. Are you near?"
"Oh, yes. I can be there in 10 minutes."
"OK."
At this point, I had just picked up my pizza. Fortunately for me, the Papa John's is literally across the street from the bank. After paying for my pizza, I slowly made my way back to the parking lot of the bank and sat in my car, eating some chicken strips while waiting for the gentleman to arrive.
After about 5 minutes, the phone rang. It was the person I had called the first time.
"Hi, it's me again. My wife is here now, and she told me who the phone belongs to, and who the owner is."
"Oh, that's great! I actually was able to contact someone who claims to be the owner, does your wife know his name?"
"Yes, it's ******."
"OK, great. He's supposed to meet me here at the bank in about 5 minutes. I'll double check, just to make sure it's the right guy."
"Oh, you're still at the bank? I was going to say, you could drop it off with us and he could come pick it up here, but if you're still there and he's going over there then that's fine."
"Yup, no problem. Thanks for the help, though!" Is this dialog boring you? About 5 minutes later, the gentleman pulled up next to me in the parking lot. I asked what his name was, and he said, "Oh, my name is ******. What's your name?"
"My name is Adley."
"Oh, Adley. Thank you very much. I am so glad that you found my phone, because I have all of my business contacts in here. Here is my card, and if you ever need anything, any help, you let me know, and I will help you. Really, thank you so much." I accepted the man's business card and wished him a good night, and then I made my way home to finish off my pizza. But for the whole 5 minutes driving home, I couldn't help but feel awesome.
That feeling of satisfaction, of restoring something that was important to the man, something that he may have taken for granted until he had lost it, and the genuine gratitude he had that I was able to return it to him really made my day. I almost felt justified for sitting on my ass playing video games all day.
Almost.
But that feeling of satisfaction...that is why I want to be an occupational therapist. And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my less than 5 hours of sleep so I can be at work in just under 7 hours.
While I'm on spring break.
Good night! |
