Have You Left Your Violin?

This is a story written by Jeffery C. Mays/The Star-Ledger.

It took 18 months for Philippe Quint to persuade a wealthy philanthropist to lend him a 1723 Antonio Stradivari "Ex-Keisewetter" violin valued at upward of $4 million.
Early Monday, it took less than a minute for the valuable instrument to disappear after Quint left it in a Newark cab.
The centuries-old stringed instrument sat in the third-row seat of the minivan cab as it was parked overnight on a Newark street. The next morning, it went along with a fare to Kearny, then to Queens and even through a motor vehicle inspection.
All the while, cab owner Mohamed Khalil was unaware that the violin was in his cab and that Quint was frantically searching for it.
When Quint was finally reunited with the prized instrument at Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday afternoon, the violinist dropped to his knees and shed tears of joy.
Quint, 34, is a Russian-born, Grammy-nominated violinist. He defected from what was then the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now a U.S. citizen. He declined to be interviewed, but in a statement issued through his publicist, said he was "incredibly grateful" to Khalil.
Quint said he put his luggage in back of the minivan after arriving from Dallas, where he performed at a private fundraiser, and kept the violin inside the cab with him when Khalil picked him up at Terminal C at about 12:30 a.m. Monday. He was dropped off at Battery Park City in Manhattan. After collecting the $52 fare, tolls, an $8 tip and a handshake, Khalil drove off.
"Instantly, I realized my violin was still in the car," Quint said in the statement.
Quint, frantic to find the violin, called the Port Authority and Newark's Taxi Commission. At 9 a.m., he was in the commission office looking at photos of drivers. By then, the word had gone out to drivers to look for the case, said Hector Corchado, head of Newark's taxi division.
Khalil was at Newark Airport about to put the taxi out on another shift when another driver asked whether anything had been left in his taxi. Khalil checked and saw the case. Minutes later, Quint arrived.

I am so happy for Mr. Quint that he recovered his Strad unharmed.
Similar thing happened to us in the past, too. My oldest and the middle one had their youth orchestra performance that day. We've been out all day and after the concert, we decided to treat the kids to Sushi. (My oldest one is a big sushi fan.) It was Sunday and it is almost restaurant's closing time. There were no customers but us. So we asked the waitress if it was OK to put kids violins on the chairs behind our table. We ate and ate and chatted away. Finally everyone finished, paid the bill and off we go. After a mile or two into driving, I just thought about the violins and asked my husband "Did you get the violins?" His already big eyes almost doubled in size! "Oh Sh*$#!" Of course I reminded him to watch his mouth:) We called the restaurant to make sure they were still open and they had them. We made a rapid U-turn and retrieved their violins. From then on, I haven't been delegating violin loading to my husband. I make sure my child put it in the car and take it out of the car BEFORE we take off:)