CLEVELAND — My husband Tony and I were walking back to the car the other night after a “bucket list” Mariah Carey concert when I got a text from a manager at work.
“Hi, we just got a call from the Cleveland Heights Police Department. Officer Finucan says they have property that belongs to you that was just turned into them. They’re asking you to call. This sounds like a scam.”
WHAT?! What “property?” I haven’t been in Cleveland Heights in months. I called the number, and sure enough, it was the Cleveland Heights Police Department. The officer told me they had my purse and my phone, and they had found identification that traced the belongings back to me.
“Sir, I was just at a concert. I have my purse on my shoulder, and I’m talking to you on my phone. Are you SURE these belong to me?”
I thought maybe I lost my old license somewhere, and it got turned in with someone else’s things.
The officer then began to describe a bag with jumper cables in it.
“That’s my emergency kit from my car!” I yelled into the phone.
Then, my heart sank.
I left a bag with my work laptop and work phone in my car, on the floor, by the backseat.
The officer said they could either bring it to the station if my car was gone, or we could drive to the police department to get my stuff. I told him I would call him right back if my car was gone.
Let me tell you. That’s a fun feeling – not knowing if you have a car anymore.
Thankfully, we see my car from a distance. From where we are, it looks fine. When we got closer, we saw that the back passenger side window had been shattered, and all my things were just thrown all over the car.
No work bag, no car emergency kit.
Thankfully, they did not take my Amazon packages that I needed to return, my denim jacket, my CDs (clearly, they hated my taste in music), phone chargers, tools, my Ohio State jacket from my dad (who is no longer with us so I would have been DEVASTATED), but they did take my lucky dollar. That dollar has traveled with me through three different cars. It’s always been there in my console.
RIP, Lucky Dollar.
We arrived at the Cleveland Heights Police Department, and they brought out my bags.
Both were in excellent condition and didn’t even look like they’d been outside. The only thing missing from either bag was my laptop. The work phone was still in the bag!
But wait, how did my bags get from Downtown Cleveland to the Cleveland Heights Police Department?
Now begins the really, really good part of the story.
Enter – Leah Mazur.
No, not me, Leah Mazur, another Leah Mazur. Same spelling. She lives in the Cleveland area. Police received a call from her after my bags showed up on her front steps.
She found my business cards in the front pocket of the laptop bag and called my phone, only to discover that the phone she was calling was in the bag.
We left that police department and headed to Cleveland Police to file a report, then went home.
The next morning, my husband and I received a message from Leah on Facebook. I initially thought that my account was hacked since the message was from “Leah Mazur” but was pleasantly surprised when I opened the message to see it was the Leah who found my bags and turned them in. She wanted me to know that she turned everything over to the police in case no one had reached out to me. She also wanted to make sure that I was OK, not knowing what happened to me since I was without these belongings. I thanked her profusely for doing what she did and going the extra mile for a total stranger with the exact same name.
We continued to chat, both pretty amused by the situation as well as being surprised that there are two Leah Mazurs who live in the Cleveland area. We were and are still just baffled that someone tried to track me down and got her instead. As far as we know, we are not related.
She then suggested that we meet up sometime. I immediately agreed, and we made plans to meet at a bar where, oddly enough, News 5 anchor Rob Powers had just covered a story for a homeless outreach event. One of her sisters just happens to work at this bar.
That’s just the start of the unique connections I have with this Leah Mazur. We are both November Scorpios. We both have two younger sisters. Our fathers have the same first name. (Mazur is my married name.) We both have had a pet named Woody. We are both crazy cat ladies. The more we talk, the more we find what we have in common.
We met in person on Tuesday night, and let me tell you, if I didn’t have to be at work early the next day, we probably would have talked all night. She told me more about how she found my bags on her front porch because she was waiting for an Amazon package. At one point, she was concerned about what might be in the bag because cords were hanging out of it. Suspicious package on your porch with cords sticking out – hey, what could go wrong?
We will probably never know how or who got my stuff, but to whoever made the effort to get the bags back to “Leah Mazur,” if you are reading this – Thank You.
I’m at a stage where I am more “quality over quantity” about adding people to my life. You would be lucky to add someone like Leah to your life. She’s a caring, loving, honest, true-to-self lady. She wants to believe that there are still good people in the world, and I believe there are because she is one of them. She has also taught me some lessons. As mad as I want to be that I had to get my window repaired, I could have ended up not having a car at all. I might have lost a laptop, but as far as the contents of that laptop, they were all saved and on my new work laptop. That Lucky Dollar? I told Leah it’s just a dollar that has stayed in each of the last three cars I’ve owned. It’s not really “lucky.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Leah told me. “If that dollar wasn’t there, whoever broke into your car might have taken something more valuable.” That dollar was enough of a distraction from the actual valuables in my car.
To recap: the people who broke my window got a laptop they can’t use, and a dollar.
I got my stuff back, a new friend, and a renewed sense that yes, there are still really, really good people in this world.
Get yourself a Lucky Dollar.
You never know when you might need it.
Leah Mazur – the Leah Mazur who wrote this – is a planning and assignment editor at News 5.
