Karma

Last October, I went to the library and found an unattended cellphone.

It was a Nokia N70, grey in colour. I sat beside it for a good half hour, but nobody came to pick it up.

So I did. By going through the phone's messages, I discovered the guy's name, let's call him Raj, and his call logs indicate that he is not a local student. Then I contacted the last local number he called, hoping that the number brings me to a UNMC student.

And it did. Some time later Raj's friend came over and pick up the phone. And some hours later, I received a message from Raj, thanking me for my honesty.

Sidenote: I do have a lot of messages stored in my phone. This is message 939/1097.

I chatted with my friend over the internet about this event.

Me: I can't believe I returned a phone I found today. After months of wanting a better phone!

KS: How's your phone-shopping coming along?

Me: I nearly bought a Sony Ericsson P1i yesterday. Luckily I didn't! P1i's Wifi may not be compatible with UNMC's.

KS: See? Your honesty has paid off. That's karma!

Well that's not really what I call karma. Instead of two phones, now I get none?

Fast forward half a year. Last week after returning home, I realised that I didn't have my thumbdrive with me. Dang! Must have left it in the computer room.

The thumbdrive itself isn't that valuable. It costed over RM100, but that was more than three years ago. It's 512MB capacity isn't appealing either. What mattered was its contents. In it I had some past year questions, soft copy of notes, lab reports (I left my thumbdrive attached to the computer after printing these), and my programming codes for the electron...

Damn. I spent a whole 10 weeks programming for that electronic project. What's more, it's a group work, and my friends are relying on that piece of code for our entire module!

I immediately rushed to the computer room in the middle of the night, attempting to retrieve it, hoping against hope that it is still there.

But it wasn't. I inquired about it with the security guard, and waited while he contacted the main guardhouse.

And waited.

And waited.

"Long, black, Apacer thumbdrive?"

"Ah yes!"

"Go to guardhouse 1 to claim it."

I thanked the security guard, trying hard to hide my glee while rushing to the said guardhouse. Sure enough, my thumbdrive was waiting for me there. After filling in a report, I gladly went home with it.