Remember When $50 Was A Lot Of Money?

Oh, wait: $50 still IS a lot of money! At least, around here it is. It's not, y'know, make-or-break money by any means…but, it's an amount that would really drive me crazy to lose.

And, that's the thing: someone DID lose it. A single bill. Neatly folded, lying under some leaves on our western sidewalk. I actually mowed over it: I realized it was money just as I pushed the mower forward. Expecting to find mulched tatters of a one or a five, I was happy to see that the bill had simply been spit out whole…then astonished to see a "zero" after the expected "five." Shit! Who carries a $50 bill around any more, and then on top of it…LOSES IT?!? Wow. And the way it was folded was just like I'd fold a $1, you know? In half, then in half again, and then drop it in my pants pocket while I looked around for something I could actually buy with it. Probably in vain, right? But, here's this fifty, looking like someone just "Whoops!" dropped it out of his front jeans pocket.

I looked around for Alan Funt…then lamely realized that Alan Funt probably hasn't done Candid Camera for three decades. But still, I looked around for someone scouring the sidewalk for his lost bill, but there was no one. Now I had to decide: what do I do with this thing? It's not the hugest amount of money I've ever found: I once saw bills floofing around in a breeze by the side of the road. I stopped, got out of the car, and collected everything I could find: over $200! On my way back from the errand I was on, I saw a dad & teenager by the side of the road, clearly looking for the money. I pulled over and asked what was up, and the dad said the kid had left his wallet on the roof of his car, and it blew away with several hundred dollars' worth of graduation money in it. Oof. Naturally I handed over everything I'd found, to the astonished thanks of the two of them. 'Cause, that's what you do, right? You give BACK found money in large quantities.

But this fifty, this was a bigger problem. First: only one bill. Second: no one obviously looking around for it. Third: a troubling amount. Hey, I'm the first guy in line to find a ten or a twenty and pocket that bitch. Hell, I'll do it if I see it fall from the grubby hand of the 10-year old in front of me! Well, yeah, probably not, but you get the drift, right? But fifty bucks…sheesh. I kept envisioning various scenarios that could have led to the bill being dropped on the sidewalk: a kid with football fundraising money? A band student with the downpayment for a winter-break trip? Hell, even if it's someone's pot money, it's still a lot of dough, right? I mean…I have no idea how much good pot $50 will buy, but I'm guessing it's a whole Ziploc bag of "St. Johns Windowbox!" So, I wanted to get the bill back to its rightful owner…only, HOW!? Do you put up signs? "Found, item of some value, call to identify?" Sheesh.

Tess & I talked about it, and lacking any better ideas, we'll use it to buy on-sale toys for donation to our local Toys for Tots collection this holiday season. Or, now that I have a worthless, dead iPod on my hands, maybe it'll be a downpayment on a new one. But probably the toys. Ho-ho-ho.