Paid to walk the dog

So this morning while walking the dog I passed a spot on the sidewalk with a good deal of change.

While picking it up I kept wondering why anyone would lose this much money and not stop to pick it up.

Part of me envisioned some terrible fight, or a mad dash to escape.  Mostly I assumed someone came home late and the coins fell out while fetching house keys.  It was hard enough to see the coins in the morning light, I am sure it would be worse in the pitch black of night.

At 6 am, with no one around and no lights on in the houses, I figured I could keep the money with out too much guilt.  I said a silent prayer for the health and safety of the original owners and their situation, and continued on my trek with a fistful of coins.

Then I pondered our society that tends to lose money in less noticeable ways and doesn't stop to look back.

From paper towels to paper plates to planned obsolescence as a nation we consistently pay money to throw money away.

At one time America was a frugal nation.  Pilgrims, Puritans, Pioneers all worked hard to use everything to the utmost.  Somewhere we fell so far from that goal that most folk do not even stop to pick up a coin, much less check their own budgets to see where money is being thrown away.

Home again I laid the coins on the stove to be counted later.

The kids all asked where I found the money -I told them I was paid to walk the dog today.

$7.02 was the grand total, that is an awful lot of money to leave just sitting there because it is a bit dark.