August 12, 2010

The Kindness of Taxi Drivers

I was on my way to a wine dinner recently. As I left my office, I grabbed an engraved laguiole opener that I was presented at some milestone or another the Lab had reached.

It's impressive hardware, and, yes, I admit, I was planning to show off a bit with it. It's not like I was going someplace where there wouldn't be corkscrews.

At the event, I reached for my opener, only to find it gone.

I knew immediately that my trophy opener had fallen from my pocket in the cab I had taken to dinner. I was momentarily devastated. I quickly strategized a few ways to drop not so subtle hints to the staff about my Christmas present for this year and tried to soldier on.

You can well imagine my surprise and delight when the next morning, arriving back at my office, my assistant presented me with the opener. Having found it after I exited the cab, the driver of the taxi had returned it to where he'd picked me up and left it with security at the building.

Hoping I might offer this generous and thoughtful man a reward for his kind act, I went downstairs to ask security myself if he had perhaps left a card or contact details.

He had not.

I was unable to offer my thanks directly.

But I am very grateful.




1 comment:

tony said...

Thank you for telling that story. It does give me hope that most people are kind and honest.