Metro's End of the Line for the Lost

Here are the contents of a green plastic bin labeled "Jan. 9," which sits high on a shelf at Metro's Lost and Found storeroom in Silver Spring:

3 cell phones

2 purses

2 hats (one brown suede, floppy; the other baseball-style, Shoppers Food Warehouse)

2 books ("Frontiers of Europe" and the 9/11 Commission report)

2 plastic bags of "stuff" (one containing a broken lamp, the other a jacket)

1 scarf

1 unopened box of English as a second language CD-ROMS

1 videotape ("From Nuremberg to Nuremberg")

1 mailing tube

1 cell phone charger

1 woman's wallet

1 silver bracelet

Gloves and keys also might have been turned in to Lost and Found on Jan. 9, but those items are kept in separate bins. Umbrellas are stacked in a separate bin, too, but it didn't rain that day -- Sunday -- so odds are there aren't any.

Every day, stuff like this pours in from the Metro system, zipped, if it will fit, inside gold-colored canvas bags. Kimberly Taylor, Phyllis Cooper and Yvette Carter are the Metro staffers charged with reuniting the left-behind with leave-behinders.

The three women are a little like detectives. "If there's something with a number on it, we call the number," said Kimberly. If there isn't, they check to see if anything matching its description has been entered under the lost and found section at www.wmata.com.

When one enters a room like this, the first thing one hopes to see is something weird. An alligator head, for example. Sadly, the alligator head is gone. It was here some months back, was never claimed and was disposed of. (Kimberly was glad to see it go. "That thing was scary," she said.)

As for how an alligator head -- a real alligator head, from a real alligator, expertly taxidermied -- could end up lost on the Metro, they're not sure. An alligator head seems like the sort of thing you'd remember you were carrying.

But then you'd think the same of canes, crutches and wheelchairs, which are regularly left behind, as if the Red Line stopped at Lourdes and the riders had tossed them aside after miraculously regaining the ability to walk.

Last week, the room held such things as an electric saw in a rugged case, half a computer, a mirror wrapped in cardboard, real estate records in an accordion file, an acoustic guitar, dry cleaning still in its plastic bag, a box of alcohol swabs, a can of Libby's peas. . . .

Kimberly said they can tell what season it is by the items that show up. The summer brings suitcases and strollers. In September, it's new backpacks and other back-to-school things. In December, it's wrapped gifts. And year-round, it's cell phones, an endless tide cast upon their shores and the single item most often lost.

The first thing they do when they get a cell phone is turn it on. Sometimes a message pops up with the owner's contact information. If not, they search the phone's directory for these listings: "Home," "Mom" and "Dad." Then they make a call. (Once a phone turned up programmed with numbers for both "Wife" and "Wifey." It was two different women, Kimberly said, neither of whom seemed to know about the other one.)

In the years the women have worked at Lost and Found, they have learned that people have an unnatural attachment to their cell phones.

"When they get their cash or their wallets or their purses [back], they'll just say, 'Thank you,' " Kimberly said. "But when they come for their cell phones, they'll say, 'Ohhh, I got my baby back! Thank you!' "

Lost things are kept for 30 days. Unclaimed electronic items are auctioned off about every three months. Clothing, housewares and tools are donated to charity. Textbooks are repatriated to school systems. Band instruments are donated to Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Passports are mailed to the State Department. Keys -- great bunches of them -- are melted down for the scrap metal.

There are often tearful reunions, but more often there are just tears. About 1,100 items come in every month, said Robin McClelland, Metro's manager of customer relations. About 30 percent are reunited with their owners.

"We get to meet a lot of interesting people," Phyllis said.

Take, for example, Scott Altman.

"He was a sweetheart," Phyllis said.

"He was very, very nice," Kimberly said.

Scott recently left his Palm Pilot on the Metro, and it made its way to Lost and Found. When Scott came to pick it up, he walked off without his briefcase. They flagged him down before he'd gotten very far. By then they'd opened the briefcase to look for his name and found that inside were photos of a man dressed as an astronaut sitting in the space shuttle.

That was Scott, who is an astronaut. They gave him back his briefcase and asked if he would autograph one of his photos. It's now above Kimberly's desk, and it says, "Thanks for all you do for Metro."I had to ask: Had they ever left anything on the Metro?

"John, I hold on to my stuff!" Phyllis said.

"I did," Kimberly admitted. It was a book she was reading for her book club, "Black No More," by George S. Schuyler. "It was a library book, too."

Kimberly came in to work every morning hoping that one of the gold canvas bags would contain her book. No such luck. It was lost and never found.

I can be found at kellyj@washpost.com. And 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. And 202-334-5129.