so, the other day, i was running in to osco to pick up tiger’s syringes, and on my way to the door, i spotted someone’s credit card on the sidewalk.

by the time i realized what it had been, i was already halfway past it to the door, and i thought it would look weird if i went back and picked it up. and what would i do with it anyways? but, what if someone else picked it up and used it to steal the person’s identity, or something? i could have prevented that possibility, if only through not personally being an identity thief (or ordinary sort of thief). i dithered over the dilemma all the way up to the pharmacy and, as i ponied up the $33 for my cat, i decided that if it was still there on the way out i would pick it up.

it was, so i did.

it’s someone’s debit card, in fact. losing a debit card is worse than losing a credit card — for one thing, you’re on the hook for more cash; for another, if someone does use your debit card you lose *real* money immediately, you don’t get the luxury of sitting on hold with your credit card bank waiting for them to straighten it out, when the bill won’t come for another 20 days. so, i’m glad i picked it up. i hope it was not too late for the person, that he had just dropped it and no one else had used it and discarded it in the meantime.

but then i realized: i have no idea what to do with it. i thought about turning it in at the jewel customer service desk, but then — *they* might steal it. (yes, i’m a suspicious sort of girl.) and besides, they’re probably not going to go back to jewel looking for it anyways, just because they’re probably not going to know where they lost it. after that, my first instinct is to hand it in to the bank, but … i, quite frankly, do not want to have my name in any way associated with this card, because if it turns out it was stolen, they will need someone to blame, and i do not want to be blamed. so that’s out. i thought about anonymously mailing it back to the bank, but what are they going to do with it and with my statement that “i found this at 7PM on wednesday at jewel, please send the person a new card since they lost it”? they’re a giant bank, they’re going to (a) fuck it up, or (b) get hopefully confused and do nothing. so that option sucks. i can’t contact the actual person, obviously, and even if i could, that gets back again to not wanting to be associated with a lost card in case i get put on the hook for something. so, i guess, in the end, although i wish i could save this person the bother of having to order a new debit card from his bank (and save him the worry of, in the meantime, hoping desperately no one found it and stole his money), i guess that in order to protect myself, the best solution is actually just to stuff the card through my shredder and forget about it.

still, it seems like there ought to be a better way.