Unclaimed Property, About To Be Claimed Seats: Escheats and Cheats!

Unclaimed

So, while I gave notice and whatnot I am still lawyering away for a few weeks, and today the partner I work for had me researching escheat law. Now, if you, like me, were like, what the HELL is escheat law, let me tell you, it is AWESOME! Well, for people like me and MAYBE, people like you, it is (creditors, not so much).

Most (all?) states have some form of unclaimed property law, where, if someone doesn’t claim any property after a certain amount of time, the holder has to turn it over to the state, or, in legal parlance, it escheats to the state. The state then, I presume, earns the float on the unclaimed security deposits, bank account funds, etc., it’s hanging onto. Yay, impoverished state coffers.

In any case (after I dutifully performed my research of course), I went online to the California unclaimed property database, available here, and DUDE, apparently I made an extra car payment! $387.78 coming my way!

I also spent a very satisfying afternoon of searching all my family members and close friends’ and maybe, maybe a few ex-boyfriend’s names and sending emails to anyone on which I found a hit (except the ex-boyfriends, hi! we have not spoken in three years but Comcast owes you $40.22, which I know because I have searched for your name in a government database!), all with the subject line, “IS THIS YOU???” Hahahaha (also, I hope I did not scare any of them, mea culpa).

Lots of states have searchable databases, so even if you are not in California, I highly recommend you Google “unclaimed property [state x]” and see if you (or your ninth grade teacher who gave you a B+ on your Crucible paper) are owed anything! Good luck! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!

About To Be Claimed

Maybe six months ago I dated this guy, we’ll call him Will, and it did not end well. Like, no one (as far as I know) cried or yelled, but it was just kind of icky. Probably for him, too.

Then, Saturday night, my sister Penny and I were having an early dinner in the Mission and CRAP, in Will walked with a date. He had a quick word with the hostess and then went to go sit in the bar to wait for his table. I did not immediately panic. This was not a small restaurant. What were the chances he would end up seated right next to me at….. one of the two two-tops on either side of us BOTH WAITING FOR THEIR BILLS??? People! These tables were like, no joke, a foot and a half from one another! We would have basically been sitting at a four top with this person who I kind of disliked a lot and who I’m sure would be happy to spend an evening listening to my conversation and storing up more ammo for his dissertation on how totally lame I am!

I freaked out. Poor Penny. But she, being the more rational, less inclined to dine-and-dash of the two of us, reminded me I had words. And I could use these words to ask the hostess not to sit him next to us.

At first I resisted the idea. I am just not a person who makes special requests. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and I explained to the hostess, I’m sure with eyes wild with fear (of both that that I was asking and that she might say no), that I’d had a few dates with one of her patrons that hadn’t ended well, and I was really hoping not to spend the next hour 18 inches away from him.

The hostess’ initial response was simply, well yes those are the two soonest-to-open tables and I will be seating him at one of them sorry. I meekly retreated to my seat, prepared for the worst, but then, MIRACLE OF ALL MIRACLES, she took pity on me, swung by to tell me she’d figured something out, and a few minutes later walked him, very quickly past us, to a four-top in the back.

SWEET, SWEET RELIEF. I have never slipped a hostess anything in my life, but I glad-handed her a $20 on my way out.

I know it is silly, all this drama over someone I went on a few dates with six months ago, and Will is really not even a bad guy (probably). And actually part of me now wonders if I didn’t cheat. Was it somehow my penance for whatever role I played in the unravelling that I have to spend an uncomfortable, probably sweaty, hour? Did I just buy my way out my sentence, like some sort of white collar criminal of dating?

Probably not. Probably I am one of many people making special requests, asking for deviations from the rules or menu, just like that one, day in, day out, and I should just be grateful that lovely hostess honored mine.

And If knew her name, I would totally look her up in the unclaimed property database, and if I found that Cingular never refunded someone with her name’s $35.96 deposit in 2002, I would send her an email, IS THIS YOU???