Finders Keepers

If you walked into a diner and sat at a table and found an abandoned $300 pair of sunglasses on the windowsill, what would you do?  Would you think someone left them behind and probably wouldn’t come back for them?  Would you take them?

The saying “Finders keepers, losers weepers” basically means that if a person finds anything that is not his, he gets to keep it and he who lost it shall weep.  As young children, this seemed to be an unwritten law we endured when something was lost or found on the playground, neighborhood yard, or anywhere else.  All we had to do was chant this phrase and the found item miraculously became ours. 

Granted this system would not hold up in a court of law, but it was and still is the system that is practiced by many children.  Sometimes it holds up and sometimes it doesn’t.  It depends who is on the other side, whether they are bigger, stronger, or smarter.  Is it fair or right?  Of course not.

Fast forward to situations involving lost items more expensive than a kickball, a bracelet, or baseball card.  You accidentally leave behind a $300 pair of sunglasses in a local diner.  You return two hours later and they are gone. Your Smartphone falls from your pocket in a store and when you backtrack to look for it, it is not in the lost and found.  Your wallet falls from your hands as you maneuver grocery bags into your car.  When you return to the parking spot an hour later, there is no wallet. 

As we grow up, thankfully most of us learn that some things we did and said on the playground were immature and wrong. So we have to ask ourselves why that ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’ mentality stays with some people.  You should be able to return to retrieve your sunglasses, phone, or wallet if you accidentally left it behind.  So why do people take things that don’t belong to them?

You may answer that perhaps the person who took your item was poor and needed it. Or perhaps you are thinking that if someone is careless enough to leave something of value behind, then they deserve to have it taken.  Really?  Everyone makes mistakes.  If some people have difficulty keeping track of their belongings, that doesn’t mean someone else has the right to them.  Just because something was found in a public place does not give someone permission to take what is not his.

Looking at it from the other side, what if you are the one who found that $300 pair of sunglasses or that brand new Smartphone?  Would you proclaim, ‘This is my lucky day!’ as you take the item and move on?  Would you rationalize that it is only fair, because someone else took something of yours one time…  This sounds like immature playground mentality to me.

At the airport in Italy a week ago, I found a wallet on a bench by the security screening area.  Someone must have lost it while sitting and putting his shoes back on.  Perhaps it fell from his pocket.  I didn’t want to look inside because if someone was watching, my action might be mistaken for me taking money from it.  I immediately gave the wallet to an airport security worker.  As I turned to continue on my way, I saw him pass it off to another security worker.  I said to my son that I hope they were going to make an attempt to find the man before his flight leaves and not just take the money.  My son said I had to have faith that there were still a lot of honest people in the world.  After all, hadn’t I just done the right thing?

I guess my faith in people doing the right thing gets challenged when I hear of so many people leaving things behind that aren’t found when they go to retrieve them.  It boils down to knowing right from wrong; being brought up with morals, so that even when you are on the playground wanting to chant that phrase and keep the baseball card you found, you don’t.