[Avodah] Coat Room Mix-up

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:

> 1- You come home from the pub with the wrong item. This is phrased as
>    "mi shenischalfu lo".
> 
> 2- "Vekhein" getting the wrong shirt back from the laundry. So that's also
>    "nischalfu lo", no? But moreso, in case I'm reading too much into
>    "chiluf", RSGanzfried continues "af al "af al pi sheshelo ne'evad"
>    -- not *only* if it's lost, but *even* if it's lost.
> 
> 3- Like case 2, but enough time has since passed that we could assume
>    the owner would have complained and gotten recompensated by then.

If we're talking about a swap, why would she pay him?  What loss did he
suffer by getting your shirt instead of his?  Assuming the shirts are of
comparable value, and he's not a (now-former) administrative law judge
in DC with an grossly inflated sense of entitlement.  Also, "ne'evad"
doesn't usually mean "lost" (as in gone missing) but "destroyed".

Also, in the first case, what does he mean with "and when the thing's
owner comes he must return it even though his own thing was lost"?
How was it lost, if the other person took it?  Surely when he comes
looking for his own thing he has brought with him the one he took?
Ela mai, he didn't take it; your item is gone, disappeared, this guy
didn't take it, but you took his.

It seems to me that the Kitzur is not talking about the second person,
who finds his item gone and another one in its place, but rather about
the first person, who took someone else's item without looking, and
didn't realise it until he got home.  Now he must not use it any more,
since he has no basis for believing that the owner has his item.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher