This morning on my way to work, I was stopped at a stop sign a couple blocks from the house. I was waiting for a car, who pulled out from the street to my right and took a left. As he drove by, I noticed that his wallet was still on his roof. I drove through the intersection thinking, "well, that's lost forever." And I don't know why, but I decided to help the poor guy. He was obviously busy this morning, and was probably taking his daughter to school or a doctor's appointment. How frustrating would it be if you lost your wallet on some quick, probably trivial errand and then had to go through all that the losing entails because of one moment of absentmindedness (wow, that word looks funny). So I turned around and drove like a manic trying to catch this guy before the wallet fell off the top of his car. I eventually pulled even with him on his right, the wallet inching slowly towards the rear of the Golf. I made eye contact and rolled my window down. He left his up, staring at me blankly. The wallet continued its march backward. I made the "rolling-down-the-window" motion. He kind of laughed at me, I think. "Come on, man. I'm not practicing the lost art of pantomine over here. This isn't mime school. I'm not going through a well-rehearsed comedy routine in the hopes that you might find it funny and give me my big break into 'the biz'." It wasn't until I started yelling at him that he realized, "hey, maybe this dude is trying to tell me something." And right then, his wallet tumbled to the street, rolling down the asphalt like some sort of bumbling kangaroo. If he had rolled down his window earlier, he could have just reached up and grabbed it, instead of sprinting through the passing cars picking up his escaping credit cards like a real life frogger.

Moral: if somebody rolls up next to and starts gesturing frantically, it's probably not because they're happy and just wanted to share their immeasurable joy with the commuter next to them. Unless you have something on your face. Then they're laughing at you, not with you.