Toronto moment

Based on a snippet of conversation I overheard between two subway drivers, I believe the following occurred on the TTC yesterday morning.

1. A lady accidentally left her umbrella on a train.
2. Lady called the TTC asking after it.
3. Someone on a train found it - either a TTC worker found it or a passenger turned it in.
4. Someone at the TTC coordinated with the lady to determine that it was most convenient for her to pick it up at Finch station.
5. A subway driver took it with him on his train up to Finch station, with the intention of giving it to the collector booth for the lady to pick up.

I got on at Eg where the train was switching drivers, and I overheard the outgoing driver debrief the incoming driver on the umbrella situation, giving her instructions to take it to the collector at Finch so its owner could pick it up.

I'm impressed by all this because it was an ordinary everyday umbrella - the kind that's for sale for a few dollars on those racks that pop up on rainy days at every supermarket and drugstore and corner store and subway station vendor, the kind that's totally going to blow inside out and be ruined within the next two storms. If I had lost that kind of umbrella, I'd just shrug my shoulders and tried to find another one before I had to go back out in the rain, and I think most people would react that way. But the two drivers I saw treated the situation with complete and total respect, without a hint that there was anything unusual about going to all this effort for a cheap umbrella. And based on logistics I'd assume there were at least three other TTC people involved (the person the lady reported the missing umbrella to, the person who found the umbrella, the Finch collector) all of whom must also have been treating the situation with respect.

Very cool.