Tote-ally thankful to cabby
. . . and bus driver as she gets bag back
The operator of a yellow cab and a tech-savvy Brooklyn woman teamed up to track an MTA bus — and reunite her with her missing purse.
The only-in-New-York story happened Wednesday after Stephanie Seiler got off a B26 bus in Bushwick and noticed she had left her purse behind.
“I reached for my keys to open my front door, and I realized I didn’t have my keys,” the 43-year-old told The Post. “I didn’t have anything.”
But she still had her phone — and made good use of it.
First she used it to hail a cab using the Curb app.
When she told the equally up-to-date cabby what had happened, the two brainstormed a plan.
Seiler, 43, used the Bus Time app to track the bus’ move- ment in real time. The cabby, who also liked technology, got into the spirit of the chase by activating his Waze app as he weaved around cars and trucks.
“He was very reassuring,” Seiler said. “He was using his app and telling me when they were going to hit traffic ahead and assuring me that we’d catch the bus.”
The pair eventually caught up with the B26 at Cadman Plaza West in Downtown Brooklyn, just as it reached the end of its line.
Seiler jumped out of the cab and ran to the line of stopped buses. Among them was her B26. She recognized the driver and asked him if he had her bag.
He told her a passenger had brought it up to him and he’d kept it safe by his feet for the rest of the route.
“I was tearing up. I was so grateful,” Seiler said. “He didn’t see why I was so excited. To him it was just the normal human decent thing to do.”
Seiler asked the driver if she could give him a hug.
He obliged, while another driver snapped a photo.
“The best thing was that it wasn’t some big heroic act, it was just a random group of people with everyday kindness doing good things,” Seiler said.
Not to mention the three big apps that helped end her crisis in the Big Apple.