We’re Rich

Meghan and I had just been to speech therapy where Meghan had been practicing her “R” sounds. As is our custom after therapy sessions, Meghan and I will treat ourselves to lunch. We usually eat at Quiznos, which shares a parking lot with Meghan’s speech therapist, because we can just walk there, but on this particular day, Meghan wants to go to KFC. KFC is about five blocks away, so we’ll drive.

“Okay, Meghan. We’re going to eat really quick and then go to Toys R Us so we can pick out a birthday gift for Corey, okay? Remember he’s having a birthday party at the beach tomorrow? Won’t that be fun?”

“Will anyone from Miss Maureen’s be there?” Meghan asks.

“I don’t know, honey. I’m sure probably Everett and Ansel will be there.” Corey used to go to preschool with Meghan but now he goes to a different school, so we haven’t seen him in a while. I’m not sure who Corey’s mom has invited from Mrs. Bus Stop, Meghan’s preschool and home of Miss Maureen.

We park just outside the KFC entrance and I open my door to get out and help Meghan out of the car when I see a dollar bill on the asphalt, just inches from my left foot. I bend over to pick it up. Wait a second. It’s not a dollar, it’s a ten-dollar bill! I’m thrilled. It’s funny how finding something of value can be an instantaneous pick-me-up. Have you ever found a twenty-dollar-bill in the pocket of an old pair of jeans? That’s the feeling I have now. I probably would have had it even if it turned out to be just a dollar.

“Meghan!” I exclaim as I hoist myself out of the driver’s seat. (There’s nothing graceful about me.) “We’re rich! Look what I just found! A ten-dollar-bill! Ten dollars!” Instead of unfolding the misshapen bill – it’s apparently been run over a few times – I hand it over to Meghan. “You can have it.” (I know. I’ve just handed a dirty bill I’ve just picked up from the asphalt and handed it to my five-year-old daughter. And we’re just about to eat lunch. Don’t judge. I know I have several shortcomings as a parent.)

Meghan looks at me with big, round eyes, amazed.

“I’ll give it to you now to put in your pocket, and, if you eat all of your mac and cheese, I’ll let you spend it at Toys R Us when we go there after lunch. Deal?”

“Deal!” Meghan beams as she slides out of her seat and out of the car – much more gracefully than her mother. She stuffs the bill into one of her front pockets.

We eat our KFC while Meghan, alternating between bites of macaroni and cheese and popcorn chicken, talks about everything she’s going to buy with her ten dollars.

“Meghan,” I caution, “Ten dollars seems like a lot of money but it’s not enough to buy everything you’re talking about. You need to think about what you really want to get. When we get to the store, if you see something you want, show it to me and I can tell you whether or not you can afford it.” I can tell she’s not listening to me. She’s got a dreamy look in her eye. Probably thinking of yet another toy she wants to get. Poor thing. I know ten dollars isn’t going to buy much of anything at Toys R Us, except maybe wrapping paper for Corey’s gift.

We arrive at the store and Meghan helps me detach a blue shopping cart from all the others.

“Mommy?” Meghan asks, taking control of the shopping cart while my hand grasps its side to avoid collisions and keep it on an even course. “Can we go look at stuffies first?” Oh, God! Enough stuffies already!

“No, Meghan. We’re here for Corey’s gift so we’re going to pick it out first. When we’re done with Corey, then we can look for something you can buy. But Meghan, do you really want another stuffie? You have so many already.”

“I want a stuffie!” She exclaims.

“Oh, brother.”

After ten minutes of looking at construction vehicles, we’ve decided on Corey’s birthday gift.

“Okay, my turn! Let’s get out of these trucks and over to my section! Follow me,” Meghan commands. I take full control of the shopping cart now as Meghan leads me out of the “boys” section of Toys R Us. We end up, of course, in the stuffed animal section.

But while I’m looking at plush toys from the Doc McStuffins and Syd the Science Kid television programs, Meghan wanders off. Oh, brother.

By the time I push the cart to the aisle intersection, she reappears, a big box under her right arm, her left arm, stretched toward me, grasps the ten-dollar-bill. It’s not a stuffie Is my first thought.

“Mommy? Can I get this,” the pleading voice asks me.

“Let me check,” I answer doubtfully. “I’m sorry, honey. This costs over twenty dollars and you only have ten.”

Meghan puts the box on the floor, runs to a different aisle, and returns within seconds with a different box tucked up under her right arm. Again, her left hand is outstretched with her ten-dollar-bill.

“How about this?” she asks.

“Meghan, this is more than twenty dollars too. See these numbers?” I show her the price tag and point out that the four-digit number indicating the price starts with a “two.” Then I have her hand me the ten-dollar-bill so I can show her that its two digits start with a “one.”

But wait a minute. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? I unfold the ten-dollar-bill and discover that I’m actually holding a one-hundred-dollar bill! Holy cow!

“Meghan! This is one hundred dollars! I thought we had ten dollars, but look! It has two zeroes, not one! One-zero-zero is one hundred.”

Meghan’s not paying much attention. I can see her mind working out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Can she get this toy or not?

“Okay, Meghan,” I start, a new pep in my tone. “Which of these toys would you rather have, the one you put on the ground or the one you’re holding? I’ll let you get one of them.”

She can’t decide. She wants both. She knows that If I were her dad, all she would have to do is remain indecisive for a few more minutes and I would give in and buy her both. But, alas, I’m not her dad. And, as it turns out, I’m a bit stingy with found money. Found money that I told Meghan she could have. Finding out it’s a one-hundred-dollar bill is a game changer. I’ll let Meghan spend twice as much, but I’m keeping the rest. It’s a win-win. I’m the one who found the money, after all.

A wave of guilt washes over me. Not for Meghan who will only get to spend twenty dollars, but for the person who dropped a hundred-dollar bill in the KFC parking lot. He had probably just gotten his paycheck cashed, and boom, immediately loses a hundred bucks. Worse than gambling because there’s no chance of winning it back.

After telling me the reasons she wants one of the toys and and then reviewing with me the reasons why she likes the other toy, Meghan finally decides which one she wants to buy.

We head to the checkout counter and purchase all of our items with my Visa.

Back home I tell Pat of our remarkable find. “It’s probably fake,” are the first words out of his mouth. What a party pooper. I go online to see what a hundred-dollar-bill looks like. I put the bill we found next to the iPad screen. They look the same to me.

Instead of putting it in my wallet, I give it to Pat to hold onto it until the next time he goes to the bank. (I’m an ATM girl; I never go to the bank.) Already, Pat has put a little seed of doubt in my brain about the bill’s authenticity so now I’m too chicken to try to use it to buy anything.

Over the next few weeks I tell just about everyone I know our story about the found money. Meghan’s version has her finding the money and her discovering it was a hundred-dollar-bill and not a ten. She likes her version better. I like mine.

After about a month. Pat has finally convinced Meghan to deposit most of the money she has stashed around the house, into her savings account at the bank. Pat and I have agreed to let Meghan deposit the hundred-dollar-bill — if it’s not counterfeit. Together, Pat and Meghan gather up her money and place it all into an envelope. With the hundred-dollar bill included, she has over three hundred dollars.

When Pat and Meghan return from the bank, Pat says, “Well. It wasn’t real.”

“What happened?” Don’t they arrest people for being in possession of counterfeit money?

“Well, the guy took the envelope to count it and he held up the hundred and said it wasn’t real. I told him how we had found it. He told me the bank had to keep it.” There were no arrests, apparently – though it would have made for an excellent post, don’t you think?

So, I guess my feelings of guilt and sadness were not for a poor schmuck’s lost pay day after all. I would love to know the story behind that fake hundred-dollar-bill that made its way to the KFC parking lot. And, as per usual, Meghan ends up the big winner in this story. She’s one lucky girl!