30-year-old Leah Kleppinger of Twinsburg, Ohio, found a wallet containing $4,700 in cash in a Bed, Bath, & Beyond shopping cart in the parking lot outside the store. It also continued information identifying its owner.
What would I have done?
She took it to the local police station, and told the Plain Dealer that “it is what God would have wanted her to do and that she was just being a good steward of it while it was in her possession.”
What would I have done?
The police lieutenant who helped her observed “There are still honest people in the world.” The “very happy” owner rewarded her, which she said was “completely unnecessary.”
What would I have done?
When the story was reported on the local TV news, reporter Ramona Robinson announced the results of a “text poll” the station had taken which asked, “What would you have done?” About 65% would NOT have returned it; 35% would have. Ramona looked shocked. Such polls are notoriously unreliable…but I have to wonder…
What would I have done?
And you?
I have no doubt that I would have returned the money, and here is why:
ReplyDeleteIt was April 11, 1955. I remember the date because it was my father's birthday and I wanted to buy him a birthday present. I was walking back to Coventry school for the afternoon session of first grade when I realized that I had forgotten to bring money to purchase the present on my way home from school that day. As I walked along trying to figure out what I could get him with the single penny I had found in my pocket, a woman walking along in front of me dropped her coin purse on the sidewalk, not ten feet in front of me, and walked on. I ran ahead, coin purse in hand and called out to the woman, who turned, smiled, took the coin purse back and fished out a dime, which she put in my hand. I now had eleven cents with which a bought a birthday card, and a piece of bubble gum that the woman at the drug store taped to the card. It was a formative experience in my life, a revelation of sorts into how the world worked.