Being Lucky vs Being Shady as Hell

Being lucky is finding $100 in a coat you bought at the thrift store and you have no idea how to return it to the original owner. You bought it, it’s yours, you could donate it if you wanted, but you don’t have to. Being shady as hell is borrowing your friend’s coat and finding $100 in the pocket and keeping it like you forgot where it came from.

One of my most proud parenting moments happened when my kids and I bought a dresser from a Craigslist ad. We met the family of the elderly woman who owned it, took it home, and discovered it had $1400 cash taped in an eyeglass case to the bottom of one of the drawers when we took it apart to move it. It was obvious this woman had forgotten where she hid all her stashes so I knew exactly how it happened.

I think my kids were maybe 6&8 at the time so I let them “have” the money, like actually hold it and feel it. They’d never seen that much money before. This was a lot of money to me, too! Like a full mortgage payment and utilities. I told them what I thought happened, how sometimes older people hide money because they didn’t trust banks. I reminded them some of the things the couple said when they sold us the dresser about not being able to afford the storage fees for the mother’s furniture….

And then I told my kids they could either keep the money, painting the picture of all of the things they could buy with it, or we could take it back to the family and tell them what we found.

And then… I sent my kids to school to think about it and left it totally up to them. When I picked them up that afternoon I asked them if they’d decided what they wanted to do with the money and I think my “yea your kids will be just fine” heart grew 497 times when they both agreed “mama, we’re going to take the money back”.

The thing is, they were actually lucky to find it, but I know now for a fact they’ll never be shady as hell.