When my brother and I were pretty young, (it was a long time ago but it had to have been between 2nd and fourth grade, though I'm not sure which one specifically), we were hanging around in front of the school one day jumping around just being kids, killing time till our mom picked us up. There was this raised garden thing that I'd always do stupid jump kicks and shit off of, pretending I was a Power Ranger, and behind the bush there we saw a white envelope. I can't remember exactly how much money we found in it, but for the early 90's it was a substantial amount. I don't know how off I am, but I think it was like 120 bucks, maybe 200. We really thought hard about what we should do with it, I mean for young kids who loved video games and comic books and had no concept of what was a lot of money, this essentially meant we just found the means to becoming fuckin sultans. I'm honestly utterly ashamed to admit that I don't think we considered taking it to the office and turning it in even once; maybe we did, but I don't remember it. We decided to keep it, and we spent it on what you'd imagine we did.
I would be so disappointed in my daughter if she did that, and I still feel guilty about that more than thirty years later, I'm being very serious about that too. I grew up in a poor area of TN, and doing that meant we royally fucked over someone who made an earnest mistake. Think about how much money that was back then before inflation, and think about how much trouble that kid who lost it there probably got in when his parents couldn't find the fuckin money man. I wonder sometimes if he got beat, if he cried a lot that night, if it affected his parents' trust of him, if he grew up in a trailer and his parents cried and stressed about this money that they maybe saved up for their kid. Goddamn, even all these years later it genuinely fucks me up to think about it, like I'm getting emotional dude.
Guilt's a mother fucker, man, and it really sticks to you if you're prone to it. Suffice to say, I never stole anything after that except for a Spawn toy from Walmart and that was on accident. I don't want the guilt dude, it weighs really heavy on me.
