It was 5am and I was catching an early morning flight from DFW airport. I had been in Dallas for business and coordinated with my wife that I would fly back to New England, make it home by noon for her to drive our son where he was expected 3 hours away.  I returned my rental car at its remote location away from the airport
terminals. I took the shuttle bus and just as I was unloading the contents of my pockets to go through security, I saw the car keys that belonged to the rental car.

I had about 20 minutes before my flight was supposed to take off. I grabbed my things and ran outside and looked for the car rental shuttle to return the keys. I waited and waited. Two minutes went by when I decided it would be worth the $20 cab fare to get these keys back so I could make my flight. Just then a cab pulled up and I ran over to it and the driver asked if I wanted a ride. I said I did and waited for the person to get out of the backseat.

I waited and waited. The person getting out of the Taxi was in no hurry so by the time he finally paid for his cab fare and got out of the car. I jumped in the backseat and was ready to go. At this point the cab driver and the patron walked around the back of the cab to get the gentleman’s suitcases out of the trunk. He had several, and again neither was in a hurry.

I sat and waited praying to have the patience I was obviously being required to have at this moment. I heard the trunk close and felt a surge of relief. Then another man walked up to ask for directions.  At this point I jumped out of the cab and all three men turned to look at me. The cab driver asked, “Do you still need a ride?” and I said I did. I humbly crawled back into the car realizing I obviously needed to demonstrate more patience than I thought I had. There were no other cabs in sight and I was now down to 15 minutes before my flight would take off. The cab driver finally returned to the front seat of the car. In the time I was waiting it occurred to me to ask how long it would take to drive to the car rental center. He said, “About 10 minutes.”

At that point I realized there was no way I’d make my flight and it was then that either a great idea or potentially the world’s stupidest idea came to me.  I asked, “Have you ever heard of anyone asking a cab driver to return car rental keys for them?”  He said, “It happens, but not often.” That didn’t do much for my reassurance. He looked like an honest man though so I asked if he would return these keys for me (knowing I would have to accept the repercussions). He said he would and I asked how much the cab fare was to the car rental center and back. He said the fare was $22 and I had less than a $20 so I asked, “Where’s an ATM?” He drove me up a couple gates and told me to run into the terminal. It should be there. It wasn’t. I looked and asked a worker at the airport and they said there was one half-way back in the direction we had just driven. So I ran out the door and down several gates and finally found the ATM. I went to the cab and gave him $25 and he gave me his card and his cell phone number so I could call to confirm that he had returned the keys. It seemed like a nice gesture but I knew if he was going to take the keys and rental car he
probably wouldn’t give me his correct cell phone number. I handed him the keys. Thanked him and felt like I was putting my faith in the goodness of humanity.

I went into the airport, through security and sat on the plane. It had been about 10 minutes and the airplane hadn’t pushed away from the gate yet so I decided to call the car rental agency to see if someone had returned the car keys. The man at the rental agency said, “No, I haven’t seen anyone.” I knew it had only been 10 minutes so there was a chance he hadn’t arrived. Just then the car rental agent said, “Wait, there’s someone walking up now.” I heard him talking with someone and he came back on the phone and said, “Yep, they’re here.”

I then called the cab driver’s cell phone and he answered. I felt a little ashamed that I hadn’t fully trusted him. I wondered if he’d feel hurt that I hadn’t called him first. I simply thanked him for all of his help and said I really, really appreciate it. Was I foolish for doing it in the first place? It turned out okay so perhaps I was foolish to think he wouldn’t have done exactly as I asked… I don’t know that there is a right answer to these questions in general but think there’s an intuitive sense we get as to whether something seems like the right or the wrong decision. I felt like asking this cab driver to return these car keys was the right decision and I was willing to trust this intuition to the tune of $20,000 or the replacement cost of that rental car….