...there, Saturday midday, on the Sellwood sidewalk was a credit card.
Signed and everything. With a name on it, a full 16-digit number embossed on the front, and the three-digit security code on the back. I briefly wondered if it was a fake card, maybe advertising something, but the signs I just mentioned showed it was indeed an in-place-of-money card.
With which mischief could be done, so I was able to prevent that from happening. The postal service knows to mail lost cards of all kinds to the companies that issued them -- I deal with people finding others' lost Kroger cards, and I tell them to drop the cards in the mail or take them to a store so the cards can be returned -- so I knew that at least I could drop this credit card in a mailbox. My hopes that maybe, maybe, I'd run into the person who'd dropped it went away pretty quickly; I could picture myself saying the name on the card loudly and hoping someone nearby was that person, but I had no way to know how long that card had been there. I went into one place of business, a salon, and asked the front-desk man if anyone by the name on the card was there, and there wasn't, but he did say a mail slot was right next to the salon. Where I dropped it. Though the credit card had an expiration of this month, so it was going to be replaced soon anyway, but this prevented nearly a month of potential mischief happening with it...
But I immediately felt I should've tried harder to find the cardholder. What if that person were one business down from that salon? Or just across the street? What if they were returning to the spot right then and, finding it gone, worried that it had been stolen, not knowing fot at least a few weeks that the card's in safe keeping?
Yeah, I can't do a good deed without worrying I could've done a better deed.
Still, that credit card won't be found by anyone who'd mess with that cardholder, so there's that. That way, I helped. Like how, I hope, I helped that time.