How the Fairmount parents listserv got this woman’s luggage back

Pamela Thurmond left her bag in a cab in New York City last week.

She paid cash so she had no receipt or any details on the cab itself — license plate or medallion number. When she called the cab service, she was told she’d have to file a lost property report and had no expectation that would solve anything.

After waiting nearly an hour at the Manhattan curb where she was dropped off, hoping the cabbie would return, she gave up and got on a train back home to Philadelphia. That’s when she turned to the modern person’s place of final salvation: the Internet.

Fortunately she had a personal conversation with the cab driver, who proudly told Thurmond about her daughter, who was living in Northern Liberties and working for a big company in Center City. So, Thurmond, 35, who is an attorney and the moderator of the Fairmount Parents Yahoo email listserv, sent a note to the group. Anyone know someone who fits that description?

Request the list here if you live in Fairmount.

Like other family neighborhood lists, it’s mostly used for parents to trade, get rid of or sell children’s toys, give advice about activities and services, share news about events and the like.

“I didn’t think anything would come of it,” she said by phone. But something did.

To her surprise, someone recognized the description. That person introduced Thurmond to her and, yes, it was the right daughter, who happened to be going to visit her cab driver mother that weekend.

“I met her and got my bag yesterday. I offered her money but said no,” said Thurmond, who joined the list when she was six-months pregnant with her two-year-old son.

What did Thurmond learn from the coincidental exchange?

“We’re all more interconnected than we realize,” she said. “You say ‘six degrees of separation,’ but in our web environment, it feels like a lot less.”