Last night I found the contents of what must have been a woman's purse scattered under the bushes across the street from where I parked my car. There was a photo ID, a cash card, a cosmetology license, lots of receipts from bank deposits, an old black-and-white family photo, some business cards from Jamaica, and a ton of phone numbers scrawled on little slips of paper. There was also a windbreaker in a matching pouch. It looked like somebody must have parked there and gone through a stolen purse, throwing out everything they couldn't use. Her address, halfway across town, was on her ID, but I couldn't find any phone numbers. There was a business card for a hair salon with her first name on it, but when I called the number nobody there knew who she was. So I called 311 and asked whether a crime had been reported and what to do with all this stuff. The woman told me to take it to the post office and they would mail it back to her. It would be nice if they didn't charge me for it. I'm debating whether to put my contact information in with her stuff. On one hand I don't want to get involved in anything, but on the other hand it was dark when I was picking her things up out of the pile of dead leaves and I may have missed something smaller of sentimental value. I'll probably just throw in a note saying where I found it all so she can come back and look if she wants.

When I finished that, I was crossing the street to my building when a woman in a station wagon stopped me for directions to Bolling Air Force Base on the other side of town. She had a couple of kids in carseats in the back and some messed-up Mapquest directions that had her turning east onto a north-south street and wouldn't have gotten her anywhere near Bolling. So I took the time to tell her how to get downtown and find the highway she needed from there. "This is great ammunition for my campaign to get GPS," she said. I like her style.

Well, let's hope the people who keep track of these things were paying attention last night.