One day last summer, I went to the ol’ mailbox to see if there were any new cameras. Instead of a bulky envelope full of visual surprises, I found the above envelope from The City of New York Police Department.

My heart jumped – this was the moment in a post-9/11 world that I knew would come, especially in a post-9/11 New York. Boston didn’t take too kindly to ads placed near roadways, why would New York react any differently to anonymously placed packages left all over the city?

And, of course, since there is nothing of an identifying nature on the package, the only thing they could do was send their Cease and Desist letter – with the appropriate “We will follow up on this terror threat until you are tracked down. We hope you enjoy Guantanamo Bay” note included – to the address included in each package. There’d be no other course of action – such as looking at the Whois information for the domain name, or contacting Canada Post for ownership information.

So, I took a deep breath, and opened the envelope. All of my fears were laid to rest when I discovered it was a letter from the “Manhattan Property Clerk” letting me know that my property had been found, and I had 3 possible methods of getting it back.

After I was put at ease, I became amazed at the diligence of the Manhattan Property Clerk. I’m quite certain that if something was lost here in Vancouver and was turned into the city, it would just be tossed into the lost and found box and forgotten.

The sad thing is, this camera will definitely never come back. It has now been “disposed of Pursuant to law.” The question is, which camera is it? I think it’s Camera #68. After it was placed, I got the following note:

After I left #68 and walked a couple hundred feet to the gate, a security officer entered the park! I kept walking and turned around further in the distance to see him do a double take on the package! You should have seem him scour the park for a suspect! Not a mom with 2 kids and a stroller far off in the distance outside the park! Unfortunately he did pick up the package and at that point I descended back into the subway. Sorry about this one. I’m hoping that maybe someone along the security line might be tempted to do something with it!

The best we can hope for now is that someone finds it in a dump before it gets burned and sends it in. I have a feeling that’s not happening.