I wasn't going to read blogs this evening. But I got in, and I thought I'd check email.
I had a very valid reason for checking email, namely, that in the Lost Backpack* was one single form of identification, namely my chequebook, which has my website on it, which has my email on it. So if anyone had found the Lost Backpack and was actually going to return it, emailing me would be the way to do it.
But no-one had emailed about the Lost Backpack. This brings me to the mitzvah of returning lost objects. Me, I return lost objects if I find them. Not because it's a mitzvah (halakhic purists will find this simply horrifying) but because it's so manifestly the right thing to do. But if I return a lost object, people act like I'm the best thing since sliced bread. This is not right! It should be normal to return lost objects!
Except that it isn't, apparently. At nine o'clock this morning, the trains were mostly full of ordinary people going to work (unless there was a Muggers and Druggies convention that I wasn't told about). How is it that not one of those people made the step to pick up the Backpack and see that it was taken care of? How would they like it if they'd left their Backpacks on the train and no-one cared? What is it that makes hundreds of otherwise perfectly ordinary people completely ignore someone's Backpack?
I suppose my question is Why aren't people nicer?
My other question is Why can't I stop spending so much time faffing around online? but I don't have an answer to that one either.
* It was a Backpack. And it is Lost. It belonged to someone I care for. It contained a computer.
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