“Oh, a quarter!” My quarter. Extra quarter. Yay.
That’s always how it is, right? We pick up the coins lost on the street, left in the vending machine and clean them out of the couch. I come from a family of 12, so there are always petty coins lying around the house. Until recently, they were fair game.
I have a barely-five-year-old brother and a dad who is a 4-time entrepreneur. He just started up a new business. Michael has gotten in the gig too. He surprised us one day by setting up a bunch of upside-down laundry baskets in the living room and using them as shelves for his “store”. It was all nicely arranged and numbered. We laughed and paid him (usually 3 cents or so) to reclaim a shoe or for two-hours-cold buttered toast. He followed us around the house for hours with “Come buy something from my store!” Pretty soon the novelty wore off and customers dried up. In an attempt to stimulate demand, he collected all the combs and brushes from around the house so who needed to do their hair would have to come and buy a comb.
He finally declared bankruptcy and started a restaurant, complete with menus and food. I’m not kidding… I even went on a date there. After three nights he closed and earned 50 cents as a one man band assembled from various kitchen items. Hannah, the two-year-old, who imitates everything Mickey does, has tagged along. The other day I found a bathroom stool in the hallway with tortilla chips lined up neatly…. gross, but cute.
So now when I run across a nickel in the house, I instinctively pick it up, but before I slip it into my pocket I think, “Oh, it might be Michael’s…”
When we take the quarters off the street, the theory is that the person who lost it will never come back for it, will never miss it. It’s good logic. It’s just that... if it is Michael’s, it will be missed. He’s worked so hard for every nickel that I can never not put it back where I found it, just in case…
great
LOL.... why?
I must admit... It annoys me when people like something I've written but can't tell me why. =) It offers me no feedback for improvement.
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"Smart" is definitely a relative term. I know a great many intelligent people who do a great many unintelligent things.
your story is interesting. it's quite funny to hear about your family and how you turned their actions around.... starting a business, grabbing all things crucial to a daily life and reselling it,... quite funny! i really enjoyed reading this piece. however, i still believe that a quater when found on the streets is fine to keep, but a bill is different. but then who would we return it to and if we leave it someone else would take it. lost and founds are for only items being lost not money. money is impossible to return. however, even keys that are lost such as around a campus are lost forever. I do commend that people should return what they found, give it to a lost and found place because my roommate has recently lost her keys somewhere on campus and they keys and everything along with it was special to her and we have checked the lost and found and has found nothing...nothing to be seen.... it's easy to return something. if you found keys turn it in... it's important, not for you, but for others.