Good Samaritan, I love your ignorance

photo (2)Just moments after I snapped this picture of all the ice-frivolity at Rockefeller Center yesterday, my wallet fell out of my pocket and onto 49th Street. It was a sweet little tan leather tri-fold with an embossed pickup truck that I bought from an aging cordwainer at the Virginia Highlands Festival in Abingdon a few years back.

I didn’t notice that it had fallen. That’s because I had decided to take both kids by myself to Rockefeller Center without a stroller or any other kind of conveyance (“bold move,” said the wife, by which she meant “dumbass”). Since Dalia reacts to the suggestion of walking a whole block as if I was trying to march her out of Bataan, I was carrying both kids away from the rink, the wallet fell, and I only realized it 10 minutes later. When I went back, it was gone.

It was also raining, and, being a super dad, I had no umbrella, no food, and no money for the subway. It was lunchtime. I envisioned an afternoon of panhandling with my children, followed by a week of canceling credit cards and waiting at the DMV.

Except that something extremely bizarre happened: someone turned the wallet in to the security guards at 30 Rock.

Seriously. It was all there: $123 in cash, 3 credit cards, 2 forms of ID, 8 business cards. All there.

Even before I lost my wallet, I suspected there were a lot of visitors from the Upper Midwest at Rockefeller Center that day, because they were a little heavy-set and very good at ice-skating. Now I know. Because only a Michigander would take a full, fat wallet and just turn it over to the authorities.

I think the cabbie summed it up best after I told him the story on the way back uptown:

“That’s not how you do it,” he said happily, as if pointing out a procedural error. “No, no, no. First you take the cash out, then call a friend to give him the credit card numbers to see if he can use them, and then you throw the wallet in a trash can.”

Yes, cabbie, that is exactly how it’s done.

Thank you, dear tourist, for not knowing a thing about how we do it here in New York City.

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About Nathan

Nathan Thornburgh is a contributing writer and former senior editor at TIME Magazine who has also written for the New York Times, newyorker.com and, of course, the Phnom Penh Post. He suspects that he is messing up his kids, but just isn’t sure exactly how.

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