Faith in humanity? Check.

Much to the chagrin of my mother, I often find myself perilously close to the line dividing healthy skepticm and all-out cynicism. While I champion the application of critical thought in almost all areas of life, I, like many other intelligent and sophisticated 20-somethings in this day and age, too often cross the line into full-blown, quasi-nihilistic cynicism.

But I got a nice little reminder over the past few days that humankind can still be, well, human.

Yesterday morning, I lost my BlackBerry. Well, I didn’t so much lose it. As I watched the first bus of my two-bus commute pull away from Carling and Holland, I knew exactly where my BlackBerry was. Somewhere between my seat and the bus door.

Somehow, despite the best craftsmanship that $39.99 can buy, my fancy leather(ish) case had broken away from the belt clip, which still hung feebly from my belt, and taken my BlackBerry with it.

Shit.

My next bus came within minutes and I asked the bus driver if there was any way he could contact the other bus and get the driver to look for my PDA. To his credit, he tried. Despite driving a semi-crowded bus down narrow residential streets (Yay #14 St. Laurent!), the driver tried his best to track down the driver of the ill-fated #86.

His efforts were in vain, as there are a lot of busses on the radio that time of day, but he gave it his all and I appreciated it. He also told me I should call the security desk at OC Transpo when I got to work, since the customer service desk doesn’t open until 8:30 (this was around 7:30).

The guy at the security desk was also amazingly helpful. He took down as much information as I could give him and promised to go down the hall to dispatch to see if they could track the first driver or bus down. He promised to call back in 10 minutes with an update and proceeded to call twice with updates, despite not finding anything. He told me he called all the garages and asked them to be on the lookout and recommeded I call Lost and Found if I didn’t hear anything by this morning.

As of noon today, there was no sign of it, but I was at least buoyed by the help I was getting at the other end.

Then just as I was finishing my lunch, my office phone rang.

“Uh hey, um, my name is Jamal and I think I have your BlackBerry.”

Sweet merciful Jeebus, I thought. Arrangements were made and I met Jamal outside his office in downtown Ottawa. Apparently the BlackBerry managed to wedge itself between the seat and wall so well that it sat there all day, all night and into this morning’s commute, when Jamal found it.

I thanked him profusely and offered  to cross the street and hit up an ATM so I could give him some variety of reward. He laughed sort of nervously and refused. He told me that two weeks ago he dropped his BlackBerry as he got off the same bus and would have lost it if a woman hadn’t stopped him. He said “just promise me you’ll do the same thing if you find a cell phone or whatever.”

Now, I already know I’d turn in a cell or a PDA if I found it on the bus but his sentiment was well taken.

So thank you, Jamal, security desk guy and #14 bus driver.  Every now and again, we could all use a reminder that humanity doesn’t suck.

Roots PDA cases, on the other hand, suck in at least 150 ways.