Lost and FOUND

FOUND Magazine was started by two dudes who randomly found a note stuck on their windshield.  They found it interesting, and then started asking their friends if they had ever found miscellaneous notes, lists, or pictures, and began a collection.  This collection was first published in a series of books, and then made it's way into a website.  The website includes not only the original found items, but people are encouraged to post things that they have found as well.

The original FOUND.

I love this website for many reasons.  First of all, it comes up on my StumbleUpon all the time, so I see it pretty regularly.  I also love it because of the posts which people find.  Some are funny, some are nonsensical, and some are very poignant.  My favorite in probably the original item of FOUND, and note accidentally stuck on the founder's windshield.  The note (pictured on right) is wonderful.  After ripping this guy, Mario, to shreds by accusing him of cheating on her, Amber turns right around and asks him to page her?  It is the epitome of relationships in the real world.  The fact that this note never made it into Mario's hands could have been crisis averted, or have just made Amber and Mario's relationship more convoluted.  (and seeing as she put in under the wrong car's windshield, which must have looked like Mario's car, was he ever a cheater in the first place?)  But the beauty of the situation is that we will never know.  I love to think of different situations of how the affects of these notes could have played out.  Are Mario and Amber still together?  Is he actually a scumbag cheater?  Is Amber just paranoid?  Who knows.

Not all of the notes are as dramatic as Amber's.  Just the other day I saw one from a young boy, Trevor, asking a girl, Molly, to be his valentine.  Others have been old family portraits from the early 1900's, and some are ads for a lost dog or pogo stick.  Each post always makes me wonder about the people who made them.  Did Molly accept Trevor's proposal?  Who are the people in the photo?  Was the dog/ pogo stick ever found?  I'll never know the answer to those questions, but I'll never stop asking.