Recently, on the way to the second vaccination appointment, I was robbed.

The thief must have silently picked up the black shoulder bag, which was tightly rolled up under the luggage rack, when I stopped, because I didn't notice it on the bike.

Except for the phone, everything was gone, apartment keys, ID card, driver's license, credit cards, sunglasses, vaccination certificate, vaccination documents, plus seventy euros.

It says a lot about us corona panics that I was particularly embarrassed when I called the vaccination center to cancel the appointment.

You don't want to belong to the “vaccination tails”, as Deutschlandfunk so correctly puts it!

The next seven hours were - well.

But then, late in the evening, I received an email.

A cyclist had found the bag.

Without money, of course, but everything else is there.

It was almost midnight when I picked it up, the finder lives nearby.

After the handover we stood in front of the house and talked about crazy things that happen to you - where you are unlucky, where you are lucky.

The finder is in his late forties and works in the music industry.

“You,” says the man, “were definitely lucky.

I've had it before, so I know how it feels.

You were very lucky. "

There is not often that: the thoughtful thief

It turns out: if the finder hadn't suddenly felt like a cigarette, he would not have got off the bike at all. The bag stood upright, on the edge of the cycle path, "as someone puts it down who wants it to be found". The man apologizes for having to search everything. “Don't worry,” I say. We'll talk a little more about the thief, let's introduce him: He has the cleverness to steal from a cyclist without him noticing, but then he also has the ... We look for the word. What is it exactly what the thief had? Thoughtfulness? Decency? Sense of honor? In any case, he did not want the stolen person to have to buy everything anew, a nightmare in these times when there are no appointments in the civil registry for months.

“I asked myself that too,” says the man: “Who does that? I mean a thief is a thief. He steals things. But apparently he doesn't want to steal anything that he can't use. ”I have to laugh:“ Do you think he had the recycling problem in mind? Do you think he will vote for the Greens? ”No, not at all, says the finder. “But this thief thought further. He didn't want to cause unnecessary damage. You could call it sustainable. ”And it's true. My thief, viewed from that point of view, was a good thief, a crook with morals. So we talk a little longer, and the longer we talk the better, the person we imagine as the thief of my bag becomes more radiant in our phantasies, and only at the end does one of us say: “But now we have to give him an order don't confer, right? ”No, not a medal, then not that. Nearly,if you reflect more deeply on the world situation. Nearly!