I left my B&N Nook eBook reader on a plane on Saturday. Nobody contacted me. I’m trying to find it. Haven’t given up on Delta yet. My name and email are in the device.
Either it was found by an employee cleaning the plane, or found by the next person who sat in the seat and put stuff into the seatback pocket in front of them.
Fuck the person who put their hands on it and did not make a good effort to turn it in- or find a name in it and contact me. It’s honesty, people. I’ve found wallets. I’ve found check books. It belongs to someone else and unless it goes unclaimed and you made every good faith effort to find the owner, they you are a dishonest bastard.
I’m not perfect or some paragon of virtue, god knows. But this is stealing as far as I can see. You find something? Give it the fuck back. And yes, you are damned right I would return a bag with $ 1 million in it. It’s NOT MY MONEY.
If I found something on a plane, I would immediately hand it to a flight attendant, not investigate whose it was. First of all, it’s a plane, so you’d have to ship it cross country. Secondly, who knows what’s in it – drugs, a bomb, etc.
10 bucks says it’s languishing in a lost and found somewhere in the Delta system. No one is going to bother turning it on for the off-chance it contains a phone number. Here’s hoping it eventually turns up.
I wouldn’t take this bet. I left a camera on a plane a few years ago. It had my name, address and phone number on it. I called, left all my information and didn’t hear back from them. I bought a new digital camera and a year later the airline called and said they found my camera. A year later it sat somewhere with my name on the outside.
Wait, I said ten bucks it’s sitting in the lost and found, just like your camera! If it took a year to track you down with a visible address, then I’ll bet it takes 5 years to track him down. By which time, Barnes & Noble will be out of business and Nooks will be worthless.
A friend of mine once found a portable DVD player on the bus, and was very happy that he had acquired such a handy item for free. The idea of turning it in to the lost and found never even occurred to him; when I made the observation that it was actually someone else’s property, he cited the ancient legal decision of Finders v Keepers.
I always assumed the flight crews went through each seat pocket between flights to make sure everyone had their crappy skymall catalog and vomit bag and emergency exit card that shows the plane floating perkily on the surface of the ocean. So the airline or a rogue crew member could have your item, but probably not another customer? Though I guess the last passenger off the plane could scoop up left-behind loot.
They do and they don’t. The cleaning crews have at most a half hour to turn over the plane, often times they have half that. Depending on the size of the plane and the airline, the four or five people assigned the task of cleaning aren’t going to notice anything that isn’t glaringly wrong because they are highly task-focused and working against a very persistent and unforgiving clock.
The fear of leaving my iPad behind someplace is why, in part, it now lives in a blindingly bright fire engine red case. I want to maximize the chances that I’ll see it and not forget it, anywhere I might take it.
Cartooniverse, I hope the best for you and your Nook.
No luck with Delta- LGA. Nothing was turned in as of yet. I’m calling again now to follow up. Also left messages at Delta- O’Hare in case it was found after the return flight. Agreed- very fast turn around on the part of plane cleaning crews.
Getting back a year later will be better than never getting back. It was a gift from my wife, and one we cannot afford to replace. It is just burning me up that I left it there. Bad to take in as I fly- which is the main reason I was jonesing an eBook reader- because I frequently nap and awaken somewhat groggy, get off the plane and get to a rental car or taxi home. I fly incessantly and yet sometimes forget to check the seatback pocket in front of me.
I’m hoping the crew had a bit more time in my case as the plane landed at Pearson at 9:00 pm, so they may have had a bit more time to turn it around.
That being said, you probably wouldn’t see it unless you looked into the seat pocket, since it’s in a black case. It might be making it’s way merrily across the country as we speak.
I’m mad at myself for leaving it (especially since I actually reminded myself at one point not to forget it), but if it’s lost, it’s lost (or abandoned, as Dio sees it).
A few years ago I was on a long bus ride. Before I left, my friend gave me a copy of Howard Stern’s biography to read on the ride. He’d finished reading it, and didn’t want it anymore.
I read as much as I could on the ride, and after we arrived, I decided I didn’t particularly want this book either. Instead of throwing it away, I decided to shove it between the seats for some other bored passenger to find.
I’d gotten five steps away from the bus when a woman sitting behind me ran up and gave me back the book. “You forgot this!” she said.
