Another Nice Cop Story

December, 2009 brought us a lot of snow with blocked roads and the whole winter wonderland thing. When the main roads were cleared a bit, Susan needed something from a shop in Ludlow and I volunteered to drive up and get it for her. The drive wasn’t bad, but the parking lot in the center of Ludlow was a real mess with about a foot of snow all chewed up from the cars going in and out.

After my errand, as I was walking back to the car, I reached into my jacket pocket for my keys, but my pocket was empty. I went through the pantomime of patting all my other pockets; no keys. I guessed that they might have fallen out of my pocket when I pulled out my gloves, so I went back to the car and started looking around on the ground. Of course, I couldn’t see anything in the chewed up snow of the parking lot. Then I retraced my steps to the shop scoping the sidewalks on the way. I checked in the shop in case I’d dropped them there. Still no luck.

I’d have to take the bus back home, borrow Susan’s keys and return on the bus to Ludlow, a round trip of a couple of hours. Fortunately, we have old people’s free bus passes. This brought up another problem: I’d only paid for an hour in the parking lot and there was no attendant there. I phoned the Shropshire Council offices in Shrewsbury and explained the situation, gave them my car registration number and it was all arranged that my car would not  be towed away or get fined.

I finally got back and collected the car with no problems.

The next day, a Sunday, I got a phone call from the West Mercia Police station in Ludlow. Some good citizen had found my keys in the parking lot and turned them in to the cop shop. I drove right back to Ludlow; went to the police station; identified myself and got the keys back.

But, I asked, how did they know the keys belonged to me and how did they get my phone number. Here comes the cool part. On my key ring I keep one of those little tags from the supermarket for their customer loyalty program. The cops had called the local Tesco and gave them the number from my tag and got my name, but the Tesco manager wouldn’t give out my address or phone number for confidentiality reason. They knew where the keys had been found and called the council office to see if they knew anything and got my registration number. From this they contacted the Vehicle Licence records office in Swansea, Wales, and got my address. The on-line phone book gave them my home phone number.

Can you believe it, all this to return a set of keys!? Nice cops.