If you have ever encountered of losing your properties such as bag, wallet, handphone (cellular phone) and other gadgets in public place of Jakarta, I believe you would have defenselessly let it go. You would have not expected the stuffs be returned to you, yet you would have taken it as a lesson learned for you to next time being more careful, that’s it.Losing some properties in public places and not getting it back is common. Just come into the Lost&Found desk in malls, terminals, and other public places, then ask the officer to show the list of “Lost” and the list of “Found” in the log book and you will get the point. That’s why most of us are too reluctant to come to the Lost&Found desk when losing of properties. I am too. But you can try my approach, probably it can work.
One day I went to a bookstore with my wife, daughter as well as my daughter’s babysitter. After hours in the bookstore, my daughter asked to go to toilet and the nanny accompanied her. Minutes later, the nanny came to me hurriedly and said: “Pak, I am losing of my handphone.” I asked: “How come? Where?” She replied: “Just now, in the toilet.”
I then asked my wife to quickly go with her to the toilet for searching it. The handphone just a new one and I believed she had saved money for several months to buy that. Minutes later, they came to me with empty hands. The satpam (security officer) who saw us could do nothing but asked me to leave my name and my contact number. Instead of coming to the Lost&Found desk, I went home. What could I do? It’s almost impossible to get it back, but I still wanted to try something.
I then texted some message and sent it to the number of the lost handphone: “Dear sir/madam, this handphone belongs to my nanny, would you please return it back? Thanks for your kindness.”
That was a Saturday. I told the nanny that the only thing we could do was try but no need to expect too much. I have forgotten the case until the following day my handphone suddenly beep receiving a message (sms): “The handphone is on me. Call me in this number.”
I called the number right away and a man picked up my call over there. I introduced myself and conveyed many thanks for his response. I then explained that he could return the handphone to my nanny if he wanted to do so. “No problem, when do you want to take it?” he asked. “It’s up to you, Pak, I will follow when and where can we meet,” I replied. We made appointment to meet in a hospital in West Jakarta because the location is not too far from his home.
I brought my wife, daughter as well as the nanny to come there. We met with the man - a young man accompanied by his pregnant wife. “Sorry, I got it from my mom,” he said and took the handphone out of his pocket. “She found it at the bookstore’s toilet and didn’t know what to do,” he continued. After minutes of conversation he handed it over to me. I asked my nanny to check if it was really her handphone. The nanny smiled widely and said many thanks to him. I looked at my wife chatted with his wife and wished grace for her pregnancy.
Till today, I sometimes texted an sms to him saying hello and asking his wife’s pregnancy condition. I planned to visit the family when the baby is born, but the due date has yet to come.
I don’t really understand how it’s worked. I was happy not just because we’ve found the lost handphone, but we’ve found someone with such morality in the middle of reckless society nowadays.
Maybe you can try such approach to find your lost properties rather than making a report to the Lost&Found desk.
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Serpong, 29 Dec 2010
Titus J.
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