Being Taken During This, the Official Season of Giving

Alas, in this season of giving we are inhibited by the fear of being taken.

The other day, my colleague Tim Rutten told how, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, he gave $25 to a man who had knocked at his door and said his car had broken down and he needed the money to pay a tow truck. His story was so implausible that even an 8-year-old, without Rutten’s considerable intellectual credentials, would have seen through it. Rutten gave him the $25. It was only later, when the man came back with an even more improbable story and asked for another $25, that Rutten sent him packing.

The question is, must our compassion lead us into folly?

Only a couple of years ago, I gave $20 to a young man who had petitioned me on a supermarket parking lot, saying that his wife, who sat in a nearby car, was pregnant and they needed money for gas to get back to Stockton or some such place. I gave him the $20. But I wrote a column about the incident, expressing my suspicions. I received a flood of letters from readers who had been victimized by the same couple. I sent the letters to the cops, and in time the young man and his confederate were arrested and sent to jail. Even then I felt sorry for them and wasn’t sure I had done the right thing.

Last Friday, I managed to bilk myself out of $200. I wasn’t exactly robbed or conned. I was a victim of my own absent-mindedness.

I don’t like to suggest that I am becoming senile, but I have noticed little fissures in my awareness. The other night, for example, I came home from a stag dinner with a bowl of flowers--the centerpiece--and let myself in with my key. I put the flowers on the bar and talked with my wife for a while and then we went to bed.

In the morning, I couldn’t find my keys. I looked everywhere. Finally, it occurred to me that I must have left them in the door, because of the awkwardness of carrying the flowers. They weren’t in the door.

I began to believe that I had left the keys in the door and someone, perhaps an early-morning jogger, had seen them, tiptoed up on the porch and made off with 4them.

I hated to believe that this could have been done by a neighbor, but there was absolutely no other explanation. I drove to my dealer and bought a new car key. I went to a locksmith and had new house keys made. I had my wife park her car on the street and parked mine in her place in the garage. We waited uneasily for the thief to strike.

I found my keys the next morning under some papers on my desk.

Then last Friday I went to a department store to buy a gift certificate to give to my son for his birthday. I hoped to make sure that he would spend it on clothes for himself. I got two $100 certificates, that being the highest denomination. I figured $200 ought to buy a T-shirt and a pair of pants. The clerk put the certificates in a gold box and put the box in a sack.

Then I started wandering through the mall. Feeling hungry, I went into the fast-food alcove and ordered fried shrimp. Evidently I laid the package on the counter, and when my platter came, I forgot the gift. I was eating my shrimp in the dining area when I missed it. I went back to the counter. It wasn’t there. The counter workers said they hadn’t seen it.

I went back to customer service and told my story. The woman said there were no identifying marks on the certificates. Anyone could cash them. Even if I had written my son’s name on them, which I hadn’t, anyone could use them. The store clerks wouldn’t ask for ID.

I ordered two more $100 certificates. There was no reason for my son to suffer because of my absent-mindedness. The woman took my name and phone number, just in case.

It seems to me there are three kinds of people who might have taken my package. One would simply be a thief, who must have been overjoyed at what he found in the box; another would be an honest but poor person, who would reason that it was not his or her fault that the certificates were left behind; the third would be a person of rigid honesty, who would turn them in to customer service.

I do not expect that the package was recovered by the third sort of person. The odds are against it.

In the spirit of the season, I only hope it helps the finder to have a merry Christmas.