Anyone who has ever forgotten something on the S-Bahn knows how annoying it can be. You might notice the loss shortly after getting off, but by then the thing is already on its way to the next stop and then God knows where. Follow-up calls are often tedious, and mostly useless. Sometimes even a bit uncomfortable. It doesn’t even have to be an intimate or idiosyncratic object, as in Cottbus, for example, where a chainsaw and an exhaust gas analyzer were among the lost property. Even a potato salad can be embarrassing.
It’s been many years since the side dish for the school festival, prepared with a lot of motherly love, was left on the train. At that time it was not only annoying that there was no potato salad with the sausage, but that the best Tupperware bowl – from the mother’s point of view – was lost. There was no getting around a follow-up phone call to the railway company, but the request met with little understanding. They felt cheated on the hotline.
Sure: Hats, scarves and jackets, keys of all kinds, bags and umbrellas are the classics that are left behind on buses and trains. Everyone understands that it’s easy to get off without these things. When it comes to dentures, hearing aids and electric wheelchairs, one wonders how that could have happened. When the lost and found office of the Berlin S-Bahn moved a few years ago, the inventory also found a bowling ball, a large television in its original packaging, a cat bed, an XXL walker and a 750-meter coil of wire. Found yoga mats, guitars and goldfish are piled up at Munich Central Station.
Someone recently left something behind on the S-Bahn to the airport without which he would be in even more trouble for an explanation than by messing up a Tupperware bowl with potato salad. It was very late on Thursday evening when something flashed green in the front car of the S8 between Ismaning and Unterföhring. A lightsaber! Star Wars fans know that this is the most important weapon of all. But no Yoda, no Luke Skywalker, or any other Jedi in sight who could have owned the sword. This will cause trouble at home.