$11
I was buying ice cream at Cold Stone a couple days ago when presented with a conundrum that has bothered me ever since. I lay it out here for your consideration (and my own).While standing in line, I found $11 on the floor. I'm pretty sure it wasn't there when I first started looking at the ice creams, which means that somebody in the line probably dropped it--and whoever it was probably still was in that line, or at least in the store, when I found the cash. Brilliantly, I announced that I had just found $11 on the floor. Whose was it?
Predictably, I suppose, no fewer than six people claimed the cash as their own. Well now, what to do? Nobody gave up their claim, and in the end there was just no way to decide between them. I kept the $11 (and subsequently put 10 of it into the United Homeless Organization's collection bin, feeling something of a guilty conscience).
Nobody in the crowded shop complained at this except those who said it was their money in the first place, so I take that as a tacit statement that this was fair. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure that somebody got screwed out of their money. I was in a store--they easily could have given me change for a ten and a one, and I could have divided the money up between all the claimants. But that doesn't really seem fair, either; five of them were lying, after all. At least I was telling the truth when I walked out with the cash.
But that seems suspiciously ex post facto, as an attempt to justify the fact that I left the shop $11 richer for no apparent reason. What's more, I'm pretty sure that one of them was telling the truth, too, since I really do think that whoever dropped the money was probably in the store at that moment. Obviously, the cash was more rightfully that person's money than my own.
The problem here is not what I did, so much as the fact that I don't really know what I should have done. If presented with the same situation, would I handle it any better? I don't really think so.
I might not announce the amount, of course, and that seems like a sound starting point. But I also know that I never know exactly how much cash I'm carrying. If I lost $11, I might be able to see that I'm a bit short, and I might even know that I had a 10-dollar bill in there which appears now to be missing. But I'd never manage to get the exact amount with any certainty.
I imagine that others are like me in this way. I may be wrong, and, in a similar situation, there may indeed be somebody who can claim his exact loss. But if not, how does one handle this? I mean, I walked out of the store with somebody else's money, and that person was probably right there telling me that it was hers. And if so, she got totally screwed.
posted by Skay @ 11:45 PM
5 Comments:
You could have tried the"King Solomon" approach and offered to divide it and see the reaction of the claimers.
This is the best I could come up with:
Announce to everybody, "I found some money on the floor, and I believe that it belongs to somebody here. If you think you have a claim to it, write down how much you've lost on a small slip of paper and give it to me."
If you haven't announced the amount of money lost, the imposters naturally won't know how much you have (they could correctly guess, but that seems unlikely). The money's true owner, unless he's really scatterbrained, probably should.
Admittedly, on the spot, I probably would have done what you did, and with similar results.
On a completely unrelated note: my sister is starting at Johnson soon. Do you have any recommendations for restaurants/bars/things to do in Ithaca?
Best bar in Ithaca: the Chapter House. (Everyone will disagree, because this is the quintessential and unremarkable college bar. Nonetheless, it's pretty good.)
Best bar, according to everybody else: Felicia's Atomic Lounge
Best coffee: Stella's.
Best dessert: Madeline's.
Best place to get books for 10 cents each: Friends of the Library Booksale.
Best sandwich: Ithaca Bakery
Best use of a Saturday morning: the farmer's market
Best use of a Saturday afternoon: the Cornell Plantations or Buttermilk Falls
Best use of a Saturday night: the Haunt
Better music on a Saturday night: Castaways. Sadly, worse club than the Haunt.
Best vegetarian food: Moosewood
Best restaurant: Tough one. The Heights Cafe is pretty great. Just a Taste has some FANTASTIC dishes, the best in Ithaca, but is a bit uneven so you have to get lucky with your picks. The steakhouse in town is quite good.
Best salsa dancing: Common Ground
(Best club: also Common Ground, it seems to me, but, while straight-friendly, it is generally a gay/lesbian club.)
Best random dancing: Fridays on the Commons in the summer
Best day trip: surprisingly, the Corning Museum of Glass
Best weekend trip: Montreal
Best thing to do to show off your campus to a visitor: climb the clocktower during a chimes concert
Best quick cash: psych experiments (in Uris hall)
Worst food on campus: the Ivy Room
Best local(-ish) sports team: the Binghamton Mets
Most for your money: the Binghamton Mets
Best Cornell tradition that you don't want to miss: Dragon Day
Far and away best on-campus experience: Cornell hockey
Best-kept Cornell secret: Anybody can request any book kept in the Rare and Manuscript Collection. Just go in and ask for something from the 1400s or something.
Wow! Now that's what I call a response that's way above and beyond. She'll be married (bless'd nuptials are happening this Saturday, actually) and in grad school, which will make for a different experience from yours, but she'll definitely appreciate the inside info. Thanks!
Congrats to her, Donovan! I lived with a bunch of grad students, but none were married, so that would indeed change the experience rather dramatically.
Hope she has a great time!
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