Found this in an article entitled “20 Strange Ways to be Frugal” at Bankrate.com:
“20. Next time you need an umbrella, go to your local public library and ask for the lost and found department. Tell them that you left your black umbrella at the library last month. They will show you a selection of several black umbrellas. Select the most expensive and it’s yours. The bigger the library, the better the selection of umbrellas.”
black umbrella scam
I guess my town is too small; noone seems to leave umbrellas. If you need sweatshirts, backpacks, one glove, or a winter hat, come see me. If nothing else, we could look at the umbrella scam as recycling…
and
Also, patrons could ask for discs left in library computers. Just say that you didn’t put your name on it and it might have been black…
How I survived college…
Actually, I only bought one umbrella throughout fifteen years of college–not by raiding the lost and found, but by this odd sort of shuffling umbrella resources around. I lost my umbrella, then I’d find one in a classroom, then I’d lose that one, etc. It was sort of like a http://www.bookcrossing.com, but with umbrellas. I often wonder what would have happen if I’d labelled all those umbrellas with some way to find out how far they ranged. I particularly miss the grey, full-sized, strong British-style brollie. That kept me from flying off a mountain toward a lake.
Now, the disk trick I have used, although I was up front with the computer lab consultant. I needed a disk, didn’t want to lose everything, and asked if they had any spares. When the answer was no, I said, ‘do you have any that have been sitting in your lost bin without any identifying marks? Voila! Instant access granted. 🙂
I’ve done that
Not at the library, though. When I worked in <unnamed large metropolis>, my office was a block from the transit system’s lost and found office. It’s not hard to walk into the lost and found and say, “I left my black collapsible umbrella on the green line train Monday morning”. You’ll usually find that you end up with your choice of five or six.