Ya know...after all the shit I went through in Florida this past week and how down I was it was nice to have my faith in my fellow man restored today...

Last night I panicked upon realizing that I left my cell phone some place other than my pocket. A friend called and learned it was in the hands of the person that found it in the back of the cab. Since I use my cell phone for EVERYTHING they said for me to call tomorrow and make arrangements to pick it up.

I freaked. I had no idea who these people were. I thought it might be the cab driver with the phone who would use it to call his friends in God knows what country. I was somewhat livid that I couldn't get it back last night. But I had no choice. I had to deal.

This morning I called up my number and got the roommate of what I assumed was the cab driver. Okay, at first I assumed it was the wife but turns out it was just the roommate someone who found it in the back of the cab (oddly enough also named Brian). I didn't know what to really make of it but they said that they would call back once Brian The Phone Rescuer was awake and I could make plans from there. Well when the call came back in Brian The Phone Rescuer wasn't going to be home for a long time after he left so my only choice was to cab over there on my lunch hour to get it. This of course was the time that I had slated for The Great Box Buying Extravaganza of 2003 but I had to choose between the two and since the phone was all the way over on the Lower East Side, it just made better sense to postpone TGBBE 2003 until after work.

Now here's where faith is restored. I rang the apartment buzzer and the roommate bounded down the stairs holding the phone in her hand and just gave it to me. Didn't ask for a reward. Didn't ask for me to pay them anything. Just handed it to me. I was floored even as I handed her $20 to say thank you not only for being so great about it all but for the honesty of it all as well. Really and truly they could have ditched the phone, kept it, run up thousands of minutes in talking, everything. But they didn't. All they did was call the last person that I had on my phone list and let them know that they had my phone and to pass the word along.

The woman I met who gave me the phone seemed shocked that I was handing her money and even said, "For real?" Hell yeah for real! 1) You saved me about $200 in buying a new phone and God knows how much headache. 2) You've been great about the whole thing and have been more than helpful. And 3) You asked for nothing in return but was expecting pleasure of doing a good deed.

As I'm about to leave she turns me to and says, "Can I give you a hug?"

It was the best hug I have had in a long time.

Sometimes it's the small things like this that can make the biggest impression.