I'm a simple emigrant, and the doorman syndrome is an international thing

Found a valid health insurance card the other day. In Germany it looks roughly like our rights. The card belonged to a young woman, let's call her Lalya; the first thing that shocked me was the birth year 2006, because the photo showed not a three-year-old child. In short, I thought, a young woman, surely I would find her online in two clicks and return the card. How wrong I was. I spent the whole evening searching for Lalya across all social networks—you can imagine, there was now a bit of curiosity. And here’s what I want to say about this: firstly, where are the promised AI algorithms? There were so few options that I started to think the German data privacy laws had erased everything about Lalya from Google. Secondly, please stay unique, even if just a little. Of those I found, honestly, they all looked the same. I couldn’t identify Lalya among them. Then I came up with contacting the insurance and offering to pass my phone number on to Lalya. They warmly thanked me and said that if within 24 hours she doesn’t call me, I may destroy the card. I waited almost like Hachiko, only nine years younger. But nobody contacted me. I didn’t want to destroy the card, because restoring documents in Germany is a pain. I decided to go to the Lost and Found Office. In Frankfurt it’s a real way to find your lost belongings. The nearest bureau turned out to be in the Immigration Office; ours consists of two buildings. In front of the first building stood guards; with the younger one I only clarified that the Lost and Found is in the next building. He confirmed this information, but the older guard, who was busy with another visitor, decided that our dialogue was somehow too smooth and came up with the question where I was headed without an appointment. To which I politely said: “Are you serious? What appointment, if I’m just here to drop off a found item?” But he was sure of his rightness that I had simply ignored him; I smiled politely and went to drop off the card. About a minute and a half later I had already dropped off the card and came back to tell him not to lie to other people. It seems, at first he thought I was asking for something again and the thrill of victory was already running through his veins when he repeated again that you can only go there with an appointment. And then I abruptly cut him off and said that this was a statement, not a question, because I had just handed over the card without an appointment. Then he decided that he should shout after me about how imperfect my German is, and, of course, have a good day. #curiosities