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| Kathy Wilson (right) and Bonnie Taylor file away the most recent additions into French Lick Springs Hotel's lost and found. They need a filing system and a computer log to keep everything straight, since the hotel's lost and found has more than 4,000 entries every year with everything from phone chargers to bicycles to false teeth. |
Maybe she’s the only one on this crusade, but as the keeper of the lost and found department at French Lick Resort, Kathy Wilson is a woman with a mission.
“I’ve got a campaign going to have the hook removed on the
back of the bathroom doors. It causes issues,” Kathy says with a laugh.
A forgotten swimsuit. An orphaned purse. When guests leave something behind at French Lick Resort, they all wind up in Kathy’s care at the lost and found. If you’ve ever forgotten something here before checking out, don’t worry. You’ve got plenty of company.
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| Forget your swim goggles or floaties? You're not alone. There's an overflowing bin in the lost and found, as pool toys most commonly get left behind. |
False teeth. Phone chargers by the dozens. A bicycle.
Kathy started out using plastic tubs to keep everything in,
but she’s since upgraded to filing cabinets with each drawer dedicated to the
day of the month the forgotten items were catalogued. She had to go bigger
because, well, folks forget a lot of
stuff. Even the big stuff.
A fold-up wagon. A music stand. Laptops and tablets. A jumbo
cooler, which was used as a makeshift table to hold more lost items in Kathy’s cluttered quarters.
“We have determined it’s the healing powers of French Lick
that make people forget to take this stuff home,” jokes Kathy, alluding to the
guests who flocked here a century ago for the mineral waters rumored to heal
anything. “They come in and then they go out, and then they don’t need all
these things.”
Eyeglasses, for instances. Kathy points to a nearby pile of
seven or eight pair on top of the filing cabinet. “And these are just
yesterday’s,” she says.
One time, somebody left a computer printer here for two
months. Things like credit cards have a shorter shelf life in the lost and
found, since those are more easily traced back to their owners. (Public service
announcement: Don’t forget your card when leaving The Power Plant Bar and
Grill, since more tend to be left there than any other restaurant at the
resort.)
Kathy also has the biggest collection you’ve ever seen of single earrings — because you never lose both at the same time, only just one. A guest recently called in a panic over a lost diamond earring. One turned up at the bottom of the hot tub. It then got escorted up to the jewelry store at French Lick Springs Hotel, so they could verify the diamond was in fact a diamond.
“The jewelry store determined it was real, so I called her
and I said I have found your earring,” Kathy says. “Screaming of joy on the other
side. She finally got her earring back.”
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| Jewelry is easy to leave behind, and it takes up residence between the computer monitor and keyboard in the lost and found office. |
Another woman figured her Pandora bracelet was gone forever, since three months had passed since she lost it. But every few months, all the furniture is removed from guestrooms when they undergo deep cleaning, and poof: when rooms get emptied out, Pandora bracelets get found.
Fear not; lost items that aren’t claimed by the necessary
deadline to recover them often find a new home — unrecovered eyeglasses get
donated to the local Lions Club, batches of books are sent to the library and
pillows get donated as pet beds. Kathy has a stash of nightlights handy in case
a guest calls the front desk looking for one. Same with keeping extra hairspray
and curling irons, “so when we have a guest with a hair emergency, we’re ready,”
she says.
Double check that you have everything before leaving if you
stay here over the Fourth of July — that seems to be the holiday when the most
stranded items. Oh, and if you stay in Room 2511, be extra cautious. For
whatever reason, that’s the room where things are left behind most often.
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| Don't forget your electronics chargers... |
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| ... And especially not your car keys (We have drawers full of both). |
And now to double-double check:
Phone chargers. Swim goggles. Eyeglasses and sunglasses.
Clothes. Got ’em all? Those are the items that surface most often in the lost
and found.
The bathroom hook. The dresser drawers. The high bedposts
where it’s easy to hang things and forget them. Take an extra look, because
those are the spots where the most items are left behind.
And you can eliminate even more worry by following Kathy’s
golden rule of packing for vacation:
“Don’t bring it if you don’t need it,” she says.