In last week’s column, I wrote about traveling to Warsaw for the international Literacy for Democracy conference. What I failed to mention was that I left my beloved black leather jacket behind.

Five minutes into my Uber ride to the Warsaw airport, I realized it was missing. I quickly emailed the conference organizers and asked if they could retrieve it, offering, of course, to reimburse them for their troubles.

“That’s going to cost more than the jacket,” my colleague offered. Which was definitely true because the jacket was free at a clothing swap.

Ten days after I returned from Poland, so did my jacket. Wrapped neatly in a box with two bookmarks and a handwritten note: “Greetings from Poland. Best, Ola.”

I posted a photo on Facebook, eager to share this lovely footnote to an already wonderful trip. And then something even better happened: My comments started to fill with similar stories.

“Recently I left a vest that I really liked in a Kettle Moraine bar and grill,” Steven Larson wrote. “It had sentimental value. Left them a $20 bill in their mailbox and they sent it to my house!”

“My husband left his phone in a taxi in NYC while we were on our way to a rehearsal dinner,” Beth Cooper-Zobott wrote. “We called the phone and asked the driver to drop it off at the hotel and said we’d leave a reward for him at the bell stand. We asked the hotel front desk to charge $50 to our room and leave it for the driver in an envelope. When we got back after dinner the bellman gave us the phone and the envelope with the money still........

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