Lost and Found

One summer I had the task, among many other tasks, of managing the Lost and Found box. While managing the Lost and Found box seems simple enough in theory, in practice it can be another thing entirely. Sure on the surface it's simple enough. First you take a box, write "Lost and Found" on it in bright red magic marker, if you have one available. Then plant it at eye level where everyone who passes by can see it. And then stand back and wait for the people to show up.
It is a natural law that more people will seek out a Lost and Found box and its managing person to look for things they lost, than to turn in lost things that they actually found. This is not necessarily caused by a deficit of honesty produced by people not turning in the things they found, but by hope.
People who lose something turn to the Lost and Found box, having already worked out a vision in their imagination of how someone at the fair has already found their lost watch, their lost son's teddy bear or their lost car keys, and put it in the box. You can see their eyes darting to the box, their hands itching to search through it, and you hate to disappoint them by telling them, "I'm sorry folks, but there's actually nothing in the box. No, nothing at all."

Managing the Lost and Found box can be a bit like running a dead letter office. Very rarely do you actually return something to someone that they actually lost. But there are those rare shining moments when you do and that can be priceless.

To see a hand reach into the box and pull out an old weathered hat and exclaim over his shoulder to his wife, "Here it is Dora, my lucky hat!"
Of a time aged hand that clutches up a sweater that's seen better days and hug it close, an old friend returned. Then a tiny hand that pulls out a drooled on Pooh Bear and a little face lights up with joy.

Running Lost and Found as great rewards.