Oregon Magazine

Traveling the West? Stay at Shilo Inns

Waitress finds $460 in wallet
by Finn J. John of the Cottage Grove Sentinel

When she found the wallet lying in the booth at the Koffee Kup last month, Jessica Anderson didn't hesitate. Not even when she found $460 in cash stuffed inside.
"I lost my wallet once - and nobody called me," the 24-year-old waitress said. "And I had $350 in cash in mine. I had to cancel all my credit cards. So I know how much it sucks."

Jessica Anderson waits for her shift to start at the Koffee Kup Restaurant, where she works as a waitress while attending LCC. (Photo by Jared Paben - Cottage Grove Sentinel )

The customer who had been sitting in the booth was a regular, Anderson said, but nobody knew how to get hold of him. There was nothing in the wallet that gave an address or phone number - just a Bi-Mart card and a US Bank card. So, Anderson brought the wallet to Koffee Kup owner Cheryl Gottlieb, who called up US Bank.

    US Bank, of course, couldn't give Gottlieb the man's phone number. But they could - and did - pick up the phone and call him.
    "Your wallet is at the Koffee Kup," they told him.
    "He hadn't even noticed it was missing yet," Anderson said. "But when he came in, he gave me a $40 tip. I think just being honest is enough reward, but $40 was nice. And then on Valentine's Day, he drove all the way up here from Drain to give me this big heart full of chocolates."

    Anderson is a Cottage Grove High School graduate who's currently working full time and attending Lane Community College. She's working on a transfer degree so she can go to a four-year college; eventually, she wants to work in pediatric nursing. She lives in Cottage Grove with her 7-year-old son, Nicholas. Asked if she'd done anything special with the $40 tip, Anderson said she hadn't.
    "I think I used it to pay rent," she said.
    Anderson said she never even considered keeping the money.
    "I'm not that kind of person," she said matter-of-factly. "Besides, I wanted my wallet back when I lost it, so I knew he'd want his too."

OMED: The author of this piece is the Sentinel's news editor. He is a very good editor, and probably also Irish, since he is a tough but charmng rascal, and almost nobody from anywhere else is named "Finn."