h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a good cartoon strip in the Doonsbury collection which features a lost + found shop. In the last cell, the customer loses his patience and the employee loses his will to carry on .

As an aside - has anyone ever been to a lost property auction, and if so was there anything worth buying? I'd imagine that it might be a good place to pick up a very cheap laptop or cellphone.

I've never seen one of these auctions, but wanting a cheap laptop, now that you come to mention it, I'll look out for one.
How long must lost property be lost until it can be sold?

Our local bus company in Portsmouth once attempted to revive an ancient law that would allow them to charge rent on items that they found on their buses, which if not paid, would mean that the rightful owner could not have it back. While apparently perfectly legal, it strikes me a shocking practice, likely to seriously dent whatever public relations the company had (which at the time wasn't much worth speaking about, and isn't now). Luckily for us losers the idea was scrapped before it was introduced.