Thursday, February 23, 2012

My faith in humankind - renewed and destroyed in less than 5 minutes

My faith in humankind was restored today on the bus - an unlikely location, I know.  I had just got on the bus, sat down, and started reading my book.  A guy got on at the next stop and sat near me.  He looked pretty down on his luck, maybe homeless.  He took out an expensive-looking cell phone and made a call.  He told the person who answered the phone that he had just found this cell phone, and asked if that person could tell him how to get in touch with whoever the phone belonged to.  "How nice," I thought to myself, a bit surprised.  I was surprised because a couple years ago someone tried to steal my cellphone right out of my hand at this same bus stop (my bus stop is in a not-so-nice area of downtown - basically an open-air drug market).  Plus people are generally just POSs these days, so I was quite surprised that someone was actually trying to return a cellphone they found on the bus, especially in this area.  It left me feeling optimistic - like maybe people aren't as bad as I think they are, and I actually felt kind of bad for the assumptions I make about people sometimes. 

My new-found optimism was immediately dashed.  As soon as the guy hung up the phone, two other guys sitting near me told him that he should keep the phone because it looked expensive.  The guy who found the phone said he would keep it, but he didn't know how to use it.  Then as he got up to get off the bus, he said to the two guys:  don't worry, he [the owner] will have to pay to get it back.  What a jerk.  There goes my renewed faith in humankind.

4 comments:

  1. Some people should put the shoe on the other foot. Stop and think "how would this make me feel if someone did it to me?". Seems like some people only care about themselves and ftw. It's sad. You're right in general we are outweighed by a higher level of pos.

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  2. Give them a penny -ok I paid you!

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  3. I see more and more of people out to profit from the misfortune of others and getting away from the simple values we were taught as children. It is the same people who will go to church on Sunday and be back doing the same things the following week. I'm no expert in church, but, I'm pretty sure that is NOT how it works. Yet people wonder why I am so sarcastic.

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