Many happy returns

I love surprises, and I got one this morning when a UPS truck pulled up in front of my house with an unexpected package. Better yet, the delivery was tools.

Last Friday, I talked about stupidly leaving a tool tote sitting in the parking lot of a hotel I stayed at while traveling. I naturally assumed they were long gone, and didn’t even bother to say anything to the hotel clerk when checking out. I should have.

Seems they weren’t stolen at all. At some point during the night a Good Samaritan apparently saw my tools and took them to the hotel office. That’s what was in the package I received this morning.

If I had said something to the morning clerk when checking out I might have gotten them before leaving, but the night clerk had put the tool tote in the office and no connection was made when I left. Later, the manager came in and when examining the tools easily figured out who they belonged to.

Recall that I said that some of those tools were old favorites, and in the case of the hammer a very old favorite. I often used that hammer when building theater sets a couple decades ago, and to make it easier to round up my things when a set was completed I had magic-markered my name on the handle. The manager simply matched the name to the hotel records, got my address and sent them back.

It was dumb of me to leave that tool tote in the parking lot, and I compounded my own dumbness by not saying anything to the hotel clerk. However, a double dose of honesty and kindness – first the Samaritan who found them, followed by the hotel manager – more than outdid my stupidity.

A.J.