Haven't posted on here in forever, yadda yadda yadda. Haven't felt like it...

Moving on...

So last night, Mike and I grabbed dinner at Panera. Had a nice chat over our meal. Went back out to get into the car and drive home. I saw a bill on the ground and picked it up, thinking, "Ooh, a dollar... NICE!"

But it wasn't $1. It was a ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL!

Shaking, bill still in my hand, I got into the driver's seat. Showed it to Mike. There was nobody else in the parking lot and the parking lot we were in was only for Panera, so it had to have been a Panera customer who dropped it.

"What should I do?" I asked Mike, already knowing the answer.

"You can't keep it," he said. "You should take it in and leave it with them in case somebody comes back for it."

I sat there for a moment, turning it over and over in my hand. Thinking about the things I could buy with it. But the money wasn't mine, and even though I found it, I didn't feel it was mine to keep. If it had been a $1 or a $10 bill, I would have kept it. But $100 is the amount of money somebody might come back for, so I had to take it back into the place and leave it in case they did.

I went back inside and asked for the manager. Not that I didn't trust the person behind the counter, but somehow a manager seemed most trustworthy to me, and if I was going to do the right thing and take the money back, I wanted it to be done right. I asked if they had a lost and found. The manager said no, why, did I lose something. I said, "No, I found something." And held up the $100 bill.

The place was practically empty as it was getting close to closing time, and a number of folks who worked there saw what was going on and started commenting. "You should keep it!" multiple people said to me.

"I can't. It's not mine to keep. Besides what if somebody comes back for it!"

The manager said he didn't really have any place to safely keep it. Did I want to put it in the donation box that is bolted to the counter near the cash registers that collects money for a hunger charity? That seemed like a logical thing to do if he couldn't keep the money in case the person who lost it came back. So that is what I did.

I left there feeling great for having done that, even though the folks in the place were still telling me I should have kept it. "Major karma points for me!" I said, laughing as I left.

So I made a nice deposit in the karma bank last night.

If you found $100 in a parking lot with nobody else around, what would you do? Honestly? Do you think I did the right thing? (I think I did, but am curious to hear what others think.)