LOST and FOUND

LOST and FOUND

With 37 years in the industry under my belt, the items lost while visiting a resort in the Sierras still boggle my mind!  The phone call was from a panic-stricken guest who had LOST one of her expensive earrings.  She had put them on to go to dinner and her next call, at my suggestion after crawling on my hands and knees all over the carpeted floor of the bedrooms and living room of the cabin to no avail, was to the restaurant to see if someone had found it and turned it in.  This was one of a pair of $4,000 rocks in silver wire fasteners.  I also suggested that she not tell her insurance company that she had taken such expensive earrings to the mountains to play in the snow!  Oh, she wasn’t even planning to tell the insurance company ANYTHING!

Several hours later, I received another call.  The restaurant had offered to open their vacuum bags and see if they could find the errant earring, but she caught them before they had done that!   Her husband decided to empty his duffle bag of dirty clothes and there was the missing “rock” with silver wires intact.  The very special, very expensive earring was in with her husband’s dirty underwear!

We seem to acquire 5 or 6 pillows every summer, despite the fact that bedding is provided in all of our cabins.  I do know about traveling with your favorite pillow, we do!  But never calling to have the fancy pillow slip mailed back, I assume that it matches the sheets and possibly the comforter as well?!  How do you “forget” a pillow with a pink flowered pillow slip, or THREE king-sized “My Pillows” – like advertised on TV – with shiny satin pillow slips?!  You would think that they would be noticeable!

One guest “forgot” her unloaded gun, in its case, in the nightstand drawer.  It was residing in my safe for at least six months before they made the drive up to retrieve it.  Then there was the family who left a unique bread-slicing knife, which I had to find in the cabin and package securely to mail to them, only to have it sent back – wrong knife!  She drew a rough sketch, which she sent with the returning bread knife and sure enough it was also in this well-stocked kitchen drawer!  She did send the postage and her thanks!

One family routinely forgets several things when they leave after a week’s stay, “just hold them until we come next year!”  A guest called to have me secure the nail polish, remover, cuticle remover, etc. that she left in a dresser drawer.  She didn’t want a child to find it with disastrous results.  A fisherman forgot his brand new - box never opened - vacuum sealer.  I guess he planned on catching so many fish he would have to store them in the freezer and not just eat them or give them away!!  He too said, “I will be back in a couple of weeks, just put it back in the cabin when I arrive next!”

I let a repairman into the furnace area beneath one of our cabins and commented about the collection of JUNK, but also TWO brand-new doors waiting to be installed.  The repairman said,  “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure!”  Very fitting remark!  We treasure our mountain paradise and are thrilled when we can share it with so many great families seeking an escape from their frantic lives down in the flat lands.