CTA Garage

What are the odds?
Yesterday morning at around 9 a.m., I absent-​mindedly left my backpack on a CTA bus. The backpack contained a jacket that I like, various important work papers in a leather folder which I use frequently and was a gift, all my keys, plus the key fob to my apartment building, keys to my bike lock and the bike room where I live, my check book, my only functional set of eyeglasses with my bifocals, and my wallet (which contained cash, driver’s license, various other ID’s, debit cards, and everything else I need to function on a daily basis).
The only things I had luckily managed to have in my pants pockets when I left the bus was my bus pass and my cell phone, and I had my bike, which I had taken with me on the bus.
I went several blocks away from the bus stop before realizing what I had done and then the panic set in, but I had my first errand of the day to take care of first, before I could get on the bike and chase the bus. So, sick to my stomach and feeling like the biggest idiot in the world, I took care of my first errand, and then hopped on my bike and rode like hell along the bus route to try to catch the bus. I rode almost three miles as fast as I could, and when I caught up with a CTA bus on that route, it was not the bus I had been on. It was not the same driver.
Sweaty, gasping for breath, and dejected beyond words, I called the CTA, found out which garage to which a bus on that route would return, and I called them.
The folks at the CTA’s 74^th Street Garage were incredibly empathetic, personable, and willing to help. They took down my description of my stuff, and then radioed all the drivers on my bus route to alert them to look for my pack. They promised to call me as soon as they had a response.
What to do? By 2:30 pm, the CTA Garage reported that none of the drivers had reported finding a packpack, and nothing had been turned in. So, I figured that if anyone had wanted to return my backpack, they would have called me by now; there were several items in the pack with my cell phone number on them. By then, I had ridden my bike home, obtained an extra key to my apartment and temporary key fob, but the building manager was ready to change the security codes because with my key fob and my drivers license in the hands of a stranger, anyone could get into our building and into my apartment. I called the banks, cancelled the cards, closed the checking accounts, — - the whole nine yards figuring that my stuff was out there in the hands of someone who could use them to my detriment.
Later in the afternoon I had more errands. So, I got back on the bus. And, when I did, the bus driver looked at me and said, «Hey, man, aren’t you the guy that lost a back pack this morning?» I almost fell over.
IT WAS THE SAME DRIVER ON A DIFFERENT BUS!!!
He explained to me that he had turned in my pack earlier in the day, but that he had been unfamiliar with the desk clerk on duty when he brought the pack in, so he had put my pack away in a place that was not the normal place lost items are placed. He told me who to call at the CTA garage. I called her (a Manager named Barbara Keaton, who when she called me back was a total doll). She hunted down my pack.
I’m getting my stuff back (with money intact in the wallet).