Back in August, I took a walk around my neighborhood after work. A couple blocks from my house, I spotted paper folded and crumpled next to the curb, with the unmistakable color and markings of American money. The number 100 beamed from the corner. I reached down and unfolded the bill. It looked real. It passed my check for a security strip embedded in the fibers.
I scanned the area for anyone who may have dropped it. The only person I saw was a man sitting in the driver’s seat of a car parked across from me, about 20 feet away. He rolled down his window as I approached his car. I asked if he had seen anyone around that area recently. “No, I haven’t seen anyone the whole time I’ve been sitting here.” He said he worked for the census. Actually, the way he put it was that he should be retired, but he was working for the census. He held a clipboard bearing partially-filled out forms. I showed him what I had found, to explain why I had asked. “Oh, it’s mine,” he joked. We chatted a little. Near the end of our conversation, I said, “It’s your lucky day!” and handed him the bill.
He seemed to need the money more than I did. Plus, I didn’t feel that it belonged to me. But the main reason I passed the bill along was that it made a much better story. Imagine how disappointing it would be if a stranger walked up to you, waved a $100 bill in your face, asked you a couple questions, then thanked you as they pocketed the money and walked away. It felt rude to mention the money to him and then not let him in on it. I wanted him to experience a thrill just like I did when I found it.
I feel really lucky. Finding the one-hundred-dollar bill was worth much more than a hundred dollars. Within a few minutes, two examples of mysterious ways of acquiring a hundred dollars were revealed to me. Two crazy-sounding examples! Who goes for a walk and finds a hundred dollars laying around? It happened to me. Who has a stranger walk up to them and hand them a hundred dollars? I was involved in that, too. My takeaway was that there are infinite ways events can occur. If you have a wish or dream, but don’t know how it could logically, practically, “realistically” happen, I say, don’t give up on the idea. Something just as preposterous as the examples I’ve given could happen to you.
The funniest part of the story is that, earlier that same day, I practically dove in front of someone else’s shopping cart to snatch a dime off the ground. I kept the dime. But then I gave away a hundred dollars like it was a ketchup packet from McDonald’s.