Karma Is a Sweet, Sweet Old Lady

Sometime back in January or February I related a story on my Facebook page about an elderly female passenger who had lost a cherished family heirloom ring in my taxi. She wasn't absolutely certain she had lost it there, but had asked the Lost and Found department at 303 Taxi to help her find it. Since the lady — Pat is her name — had scheduled her pickup through the reservation service, the Lost and Found department was able to determine that I was the taxi who had transported her from the WalMart store in Rolling Meadows to her home at the senior living center just down the road.

Lost and Found contacted me, telling me that a passenger had lost "an engagement ring" in my car. I pulled the back seat out and found a ring — as well as a man's driver's license and a child's toy car/Transformer character. Though it didn't look like a typical engagement ring — it had the image of a flower engraved and painted into the metal, covered by what looked like glass — it certainly looked very well made. I called Lost and Found and described the ring, and a few hours later they called me back and said that it was indeed the ring Pat was looking for. They forwarded her phone number to me, and I called her right away.

I brought the ring to Pat at the senior home, and she shunted me off to a corner where there was some sort of lectern or high table of some sort, and she asked me my full name. She pulled out a checkbook and leaned on the lectern to write, and I told her that she did not have to give me any money. Pat explained that the ring had been her great-great grandmother's engagement ring, made in 1868! Pat had cried all through the night before because she thought it was lost forever. There was nothing I could say to stop her writing the check. She made it out for 100 dollars.

Through my Facebook page I shared my agonizing over whether I should cash the check or just forget about it. The majority of my friends encouraged me to accept Pat's generosity and cash the check...and so I did. ...never mind the fact that I really, really needed the money!

=================================

Early on the Monday morning of March 25th — some would consider it Sunday night — I accepted a fare in Palatine, the Chicago northwest suburb adjacent and to the northwest of Arlington Heights, where I usually work. By the zone displayed on my in-car computer, the fare was waiting in the north end of Palatine, but the GPS led me to downtown Palatine. The zone displayed on the computer was incorrect. Had it displayed the correct zone for the downtown area, I would not have accepted the fare, as I do not possess the required chauffeur and taxicab business licenses for Palatine, and picking up fares downtown is an extremely risky business. Also, it has been my experience in the past that, when a fare is offered at 2:30am for a customer waiting in downtown Palatine, it's almost always at a huge bar there called Durty Nellie's, and by the time I get there, it's almost always a no-show, meaning the customer has found another taxi standing by, and gotten into it.

Hoodwinked by a dispatcher's error, I found myself waiting outside the front door of — you guessed it — Durty Nellie's. And sure enough, from behind me rolled up one of Palatine's Finest who briefly quizzed me as to why I was there, and why I was trying to pick up a passenger even though I don't have the required Palatine licenses. Unable to provide him a satisfactory answer, I then had to cancel the fare and wait for him to issue me two tickets — one for each missing license — each carrying a fine of 200 dollars.

I looked up the ordinances, and this morning I consulted the lawyer on staff at 303 Taxi, and he told me that the wording of the ordinances is pretty broad, and I will likely be unable to escape having to pay the fines.

=================================

This afternoon I accepted a fare to pick up at the Meijer store in Rolling Meadows. The name on the order: Pat!

She got in the car and I could tell pretty quickly that she didn't recognize me. I didn't let it bother me, and we cruised on toward the senior living community she calls home. On the way our brief conversation landed on a local news story I had not heard about in which a gas station/convenience store in nearby Streamwood had been robbed one late night a few weeks ago, and the lone clerk there had been stabbed to death. I was shocked because, for a time, I had frequented that particular gas station, and I had probably transacted business with the victim.

Then Pat told me about her son-in-law who is a police detective, and who has been burning the candle at both ends on this murder case. Is her son-in-law in the police department in Streamwood? No.

PALATINE.

Despite the sad reality of the murder in Streamwood, I laughed and told Pat the story of my Palatine ticket woes, and asked her if her son-in-law might be able to make my Palatine tickets disappear.

"Oh, I don't know," she hemmed and hawed. "I suppose I could ask him. He's busy with this awful murder..."

I turned to face her. "I am the guy who found your ring..."

"OH MY GOSH!" Pat blurted. "It is you!"

She then told me again about how much she had cried that night thinking the ring was lost, and how happy she was when she heard I had found it, and how sorry she was that she couldn't write the check for "ten times more" than she had. She also mentioned that she was worried when she saw that I hadn't cashed it right away, confirming the fears I had expressed were I not to have cashed it.

Pat asked me my name and phone number again, and the date the tickets were issued. I wrote them down for her.

"I will definitely talk to my son-in-law about this!"

I have no doubt Pat will talk to her son-in-law about my tickets. I have little confidence, however, that anything can or will be done about them.

But isn't this a phenomenal coincidence!