Hello Andrew Jackson!

Then end of a long week. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to buy coffee. I’d used up the last I had at breakfast and Saturday mooring without coffee seemed unimaginable. I picked up a few other things, but too few to bother a cashier, so I wheeled my mini-cart over to the self checkout area.

No lines. Although I generally prefer the way products flow when I shakeout on the left, I opted for a machine in the right where there was more room. My head was slightly out of the game, thinking about how relaxed I’d be once I got home and into my comfy clothes. I pressed the button to begin and reached for the first item to scan when my attention was redirected elsewhere. Sticking out from the machine were 2 crisp twenty-dollar bills.

Someone had clearly asked for cash back, then neglected to take it.

I put my item back in the cart and took the money over to the store employee in charge of monitoring the self-checkout area. He came back with me, saw that I hadn’t begun the checkout process yet and typed in his code to see if he could retrieve a copy of the previous patron’s receipt. Thank goodness I hadn’t rung anything up. He got the receipt! He thanked me profusely, then went of to see what was to be done with found money.

As I continued checking out I thought about who might have left it behind. Maybe a single mom, maybe a veteran or a senior citizen. Maybe someone less needy. A 20 something planning a night of carousing. It doesn’t really matter, though, does it?

I know some people might think me nuts:  “Finders keepers, losers weepers”. But it just didn’t seem to be the right thing to do. For the record, I slept well last night and not because it was the end of a long week.

Lightning VS History: A Slice of Life Story

Lightning never strikes the same place twice.

VS

History repeats itself.

Today I declare History the winner.

Yesterday, while walking the dogs on a not so dark Monday morning before school, I found some money. Six dollars: a five and a one. They were folded over, just lying there, wet, on the sidewalk. I looked around. There was no one in sight, so I picked them up and tucked them in my pocket, happy because I was now six dollars richer and I hoped that boded well for the first Monday in November.

The funny thing is, I found the cash about ten feet away from where I’d found a wallet two summers ago. You can see now why Lightning lost.

I put forth some effort to return that wallet to its owner, but with no one in sight, I figured it was OK to keep the money. I felt a little guilty, wondering if someone had lost their last six bucks. I didn’t feel guilty enough to leave it lying there, all sad, soggy and forlorn.

On the drive to work I saw a rainbow. This must be my lucky day, I thought to myself.  There might have been a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, but I decided to leave it for someone else.