A Pack of Twenties

Over the weekend I parked my new very expensive car sort of close to the meeting - I've graduated to parking on the same street as the church but I'm still a few blocks away.  This may or may not be admirable in a character-building sense - false modesty is a very real threat to the existence of the human race - but it ended up being lucrative.  As I stepped onto the sidewalk I tripped over a twenty dollar bill folded over once, right down the middle.  I'm not adverse to money so I bent over to pick up the bill which turned out to be five twenty dollar bills.  I spun around once, surveying the quiet, Sunday morning street scene, then tucked the cash in the pocket of my thrift store jacket.

What to do?  I would return a wallet, of course, probably, maybe.  I could figure out a way to try to locate the owner of a piece of jewelry or a set of car keys, but cash is a little trickier.  I thought about making an announcement at the meeting but how would that sound?  

"If you lost a hundred bucks in twenties please see me after the meeting - all you have to do is identify the five twenty dollar bills and they're yours."

I pondered something murkier: "Hi.  I found something outside the meeting.  If you lost something please see me after we close."  That sounded weird even to me and I have a high tolerance for weird.

I mused about tacking a similarly worded note up on the fence post where I found the money but then I've got my phone number in the public eye with a murky suggestion that I've got something valuable.

I actually talked to a few friends before the meeting started and the consensus was that "it's your lucky day."  SuperK said that anyone wandering around the bar district on a Saturday night with a handful of loose bills could probably afford to lose it.

Now, here's what I did do.  I left the twenties in my shirt pocket and headed over to my coffee shop. I have this loyalty card thing that I use so the money comes off my account when the card gets swiped.  There's really no way to tip that I'm aware of and I try to be a generous tipper - people that are in the service industry work hard and don't get paid enough, and I have some extra cash that quite frankly would be better off in their hands than in mine.  So I get my timing right and slip a twenty to a couple of the women who are nicer to me than my general behavior warrants.  They both look surprised - one calls me "sweet" - and they both take the money.  I then had lunch out and tipped ten bucks on a fifteen dollar sandwich.

I'm getting there.  I may keep one for myself.