A couple of years ago, I enrolled in The Osteoarthritis Initiative, a joint research study (no pun intended) between the Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland, hospitals. Twice a year I starve myself for 24 hours and then am pricked and prodded and probed and MRI’d to reveal how my knees look and perform in this visit as opposed to the last one. It’s a little inconvenient – going without food is not my strong suit – but I feel good about making the contribution. When the study began, there was no compensation for involvement, but I guess somebody came up with some money from somewhere and the principal investigator decided at least some of us might be motivated to remain for the five-year-duration of the study if there was a little monetary carrot to balance the stick of a sharp needle in a tender arm. So some months later, when it comes as a complete surprise – not a bad thing – I now receive a nice check for $75.00.
On the way to my bank to deposit the last check, I first stopped at The Fitzgerald to confirm some measurements. A filled-out deposit slip and the check, endorsed “for deposit,” were paper clipped to the front of a file folder that held my furniture layouts. Going up the many stairs with one of the sales staff – the elevators are not yet working – I must have brushed the check and deposit slip against my leg for they fell off unnoticed on the steps. Fortunately, a workman coming up behind said, “Hey, you dropped some papers,” and he retrieved the check and gave it back to me. I went on to take my measurements and in the process stopped at the model apartment, a completed apartment in my stack and the still unfinished space where I will actually live. Satisfied, I returned to the garage, dropped the sales lady off at her office and went on to the bank. When I got there, the check and deposit slip were missing. I looked through the file folder several times, thinking that because the check had come off the front once, I must have put it more inside, where it would be more secure. But alas; no check. I searched the car, thinking it might have fallen off the folder and gotten down on the floor. But no check. I went through all my pockets, both on my shirt and in my trousers, but no check. I went home in some degree of frustration and guilt. Losing a check. How stupid! I should have been more careful.
Now, 75 bucks won’t change my life. But I hate to pour that much bread down the drain. So I called Meghan at The Fitzgerald office and told her what had happened. She said they’d check the route taken on my tour and let me know if they found anything. She’d also alert the construction crew: many men, mostly Hispanic, in hard hats and work boots, shuffling through the construction debris. But no check. I decided to just let it go. But a week later, the stingy Puritan in me, and my managerial perseverance, insisted I do more. So I called the study office but there was no answer. I guess they only work certain days of the week. I left a message for them to return my call but, now that my quest to recover the $75.00 had begun, I wanted action. So I stumbled through the hospital bureaucracy until I finally found the pay office for the project. Carol was very nice to me but she couldn’t stop payment on the old check nor issue a new one without the authorization of the study office. Back to ground zero. I waited for the OAI office – so much of our lives is now expressed in initials – to call me back. When, a few days later, they did, I faced more bureaucracy. Robin would have to consult with the manager of the study and they would probably have to have a signed affidavit from me explaining the circumstances of losing the check (if that’s what had happened) before they could stop payment on the original and issue me a new one. She would get back to me.
A day or so later, I was working on my bank reconciliation statement and was very surprised to find that it included, on the day after I had lost the check, a deposit of the missing $75.00. My first reaction was to wonder if my memory had failed so much that I had actually made the deposit and just didn’t remember. No. I’m very careful about putting the receipts for deposits in my check book. I had definitely lost the check. So how had it been deposited in my account? Some workman must have found the check, with the deposit slip, and gone to the bank for me. What a great guy! (There are no women on the construction crew.) And what a lift! Not only had I retrieved my 75 bucks, but my view of humanity had improved dramatically. I called The Fitzgerald and explained to Meghan that the check had been found and deposited. She was very pleased. I expressed my hope that she would tell the construction manager so he could complement whoever this Good Samaritan was.
But at the same time that I was reveling in my good fortune and in the cozy warmth of man’s humanity to man, I must admit that another less positive scenario occurred to me. If, knowing from his boss that a check had been lost, wouldn’t a workman who found it, return it to the office? Wouldn’t he know that this good deed would naturally redound to his benefit, get him some points? So suppose, instead, that the workman actually went to the bank and tried to cash the check. Had the bank clerk been sufficiently astute to ask for identification to verify that this Hispanic man at the window in front of her was actually Phil Cooper? Or had she simply seized the check because it was endorsed for deposit? Would an employee of PNC Bank be that aggressive?
Life is full of conundrums. I try to look at it through a glass half full instead of giving in to the half-empty cynicism that so easily seeps into life at my age. But that’s not always so easy. So maybe I shouldn’t choose. Maybe I should be less Western in my thinking and in a more Eastern point of view, just hold both possibilities in my mind at the same time. After all, I’ll never know the truth. And both alternatives are equally valid. Anyway, my $75.00 made its way to my bank account and for that I’m grateful. 75 bucks will buy almost a month’s rent on my new parking space in The Fitzgerald’s garage.
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