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a wallet in the street at 07:45

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

As I was rushing across town on my bike this morning I found a wallet lying on the street at Dundas Avenue (at Hastings). I had enough time to double back and pick it up, but not enough to do anything about it before I was due at a seminar at the U of T campus.

During a break in the seminar, I flipped through the wallet to see if I could find a phone number for the wallet's owner. There was a driver's license, a health card, the fellow's SIN card (naughty fellow, you shouldn't carry that!), a forklift operator's license, some business cards for other parties, cash, receipts, a lottery ticket, and an ATM card.

When I thought about it for a moment, I realized that I probably didn't want to contact the owner directly anyway. I once found a woman's purse in a construction pit adjacent to the bus stop where I waited every morning. When I arranged to meet the woman, she showed up with two pissed-off brothers, who demanded that I demonstrate how I'd climbed down into the pit for the purse in the first place. They were convinced I'd stolen the thing and thought I was somehow further trying to do .. I don't know what.

So rather go through anything like that again, I left a note on one of my business cards saying where I found the wallet, and left the thing at the counter of headquarters at 52 Division and that will be that.