If You See Something, Say Something. Or Don't.

Because I'm working the late shift today, I left this morning with the intention of dropping my laptop off at the UPS store, putting my rent check in the mailbox, doing a little bit of window-shopping, and getting to the library by 1:00.

So I got to the subway station, and I put down the largeish box that had my laptop in it, and I took out my checkbook and envelopes and got to writing my rent check. And then the subway arrived, and I got on, and I opened my book and got sufficiently engrossed in Redwood and Wildfire that it was several stops before I realized that I should've had a largeish box on my knees, and I didn't.

I dashed off at the next stop and waited for the train back, worried mostly that someone might have stolen my laptop. And then I got to thinking about all the signs that say "If you see something, say something" and "Don't assume it was left by accident" and realized that I had just left an unattended package in a subway station.

So I got back to my stop, and there was my package. As soon as I had picked it up and sat down on the bench, the station manager came up to me and said that someone had indeed called it in, and he wanted me to prove that it was my package -- which luckily I could do, because the UPS label I'd printed out had my name on it -- and then he wanted me to wait for the police to show up.

I gave them twenty minutes. The first five minutes I was panicking because when you are an alien, no matter how legally you're in the country, you really don't want to do anything that can get you questioned by the police. The last fifteen minutes I was just annoyed that they hadn't shown up yet.

Then I left. (The station manager had made it clear to me that I wasn't actually under any obligation to stay.)

But I had just lost enough time in waiting and riding on the subway that there was no chance of doing anything but grabbing a quick lunch and then heading over to the library.

Anyway, UPS handles all our library holds, so hopefully they will be able to pick up my package too when they come here in the afternoon. Otherwise I don't know what I'll do -- I keep losing days of writing time to running pointless errands and the fact that it's just too hot in my living room to put three words together.

(no subject)

So, Bloomberg has proposed a ban on high-calorie sodas over 16 oz. at restaurants, movie theaters, and street carts.

I'm really a bit amazed at how people will go along with increased regulation as long as they can rationalize that the thing they're regulating is bad and the people who do it are bad people. (And I've seen a LOT of discussion online about how this is a good thing because people are too stupid to make decisions for themselves and OBESITY EPIDEMIC OH NOES.)

I'm generally the farthest thing from a libertarian in terms of what I think of government regulation (and I think it would be great if we could end corn subsidies and I acknowledge that Coca-Cola and Pepsico are, as corporate entities, Not Good People) but I just don't think that a soda is in the same class of things as asbestos toothpaste and heroin cough syrup.

I acknowledge, too, that it's not a great choice if I'm underslept or migrainey and get a breakfast Coke for the caffeine-and-sugar rush. (I am so not a coffee person. Tea, yes, but tea made with hot water from the water cooler is not optimal tea.) But I think generally we should err on the side of letting people make their own bad choices.

And everything I've read has done nothing but convince me that this isn't really about concern for other people's health, but about being judgmental about other people's choices.