January 08th, 2020

Eighty-seven cents.  If my addition is correct that's what we have here. 

I found it in the dryer after doing the laundry on Monday.  Monday seems to have elected itself as the big laundry day.  Multiple loads.  Delicates, colours, whites, towels, sheets, they all get washed, dried, hung up, folded or stacked for future ironing on Monday.  And, not always, but occasionally, after I remove the clothes from the dryer I also find coins left behind. Obviously they fell out of a pocket.

I'm sure the same thing has happened to you at least once or twice.  What do you do with it when you find it?  Do you try to track down the owner? Do you leave it somewhere for someone else to later claim?  I keep it.  Yup. I don't say a word to anybody and just pocket it.  It's mine now. From the Finders Keepers rule of doing the laundry.

And it's a little bit funny because if anyone asked me if I was an honest person, I would immediately say yes.   No hesitation, no feelings of guilt or shame, just a simple, sincere yes.  All the while knowing that I am the person who filches the coins left behind in the dyer after I do the laundry  being completely aware that those coins did not come from my pocket.

In this house it's pretty easy.  If the coins weren't mine, they were Tim's.  There are no other pockets in this house. But I will be totally candid here, even when the boys still lived at home so there were multiple pockets possible, I still kept the coins if I was the one who did the laundry.  And without feeling guilty about it which is completely weird because in general I always feel guilty. 

I am the person who says I'm sorry when the person walking beside me trips over a crack in the sidewalk. I had nothing to do with them tripping but I automatically take responsibility.  The words, "I'm sorry" probably come out of my mouth more than "I'm hungry".  And I am hungry a lot.  Someone once pointed out to me that not everything bad that happens is my fault.  "Au Contraire!" I responded.  It feels as if it is although I quantify it carefully. I only take responsibility for everything that happened from 1953 forward. Anything prior to July 9th 1953 is on someone else but 'til the day I shuffle off this mortal coil, everything, apparently, is my fault.  So I get guilt.

And yet,  I do not feel even a little bit bad for confiscating the change found in the dryer.  I guess that's kind of weird, but then so I am. 

Now to be fair, the boys occasionally did the laundry when they lived at home. Yes I was the sort of mom who taught my boys to clean, to cook and to do laundry. To be independent productive self-sufficient adults.  And when they did the laundry, they didn't just do theirs they did everyone's.  It seemed fair.  When I did the laundry, I did all of it, not just mine.  The rule was, if you noticed that the laundry basket was full, and you had the time, you did the laundry.

It was that kind of house.  Uncomplicated, logical, sensible, commonsense kind of rules.  If you mess it up, clean it up. If you drop it, pick it up.  It you take it out, put it away.  If something needs doing, you do it. Rules like that.

And now that I think of it, I do not remember any of the boys ever coming to me after doing the laundry and saying, "I found this money in the dryer". Hmmmm.   Maybe it's just a normal response. Like finding a nickel on the sidewalk.  I always pick it up, don't you?  If I actually saw someone drop money, I would absolutely positively give it to them. Not even a question.  But if I'm the only person standing there?  Oh that money is mine.

it goes right into my change jar.  Which is the slowest filling change jar on the planet. Primarily because we don't often use actual money anymore.  Almost everything is plastic or online payment.  And usually if I'm out and about and buying something even if it's a meal, Tim is with me, so he pays. I hate carrying my purse if I don't have to.  So if he pays in cash, he puts the change in his pocket so I damned well know that it's his money in the dryer.  Unless of course we are going through some sort of drive-thru. Then the change goes into that little tray in his car. He has quite a bit of jingle in there.

Now that I think about it most of my clothes don't even have pockets. Or they are such poor excuses for pockets that I really cannot use them for much.  Girl clothes may be pretty but functionally fairly useless.  The right back pocket of most (but not all) of my jeans fits my cellphone and I sometimes can tuck a chapstick into a front jean pocket but that's about it.  Shorts?  Almost never a pocket. And if there is one, it's good for about nothing.  Skirts?  Same deal.  Capri's?  I have one pair with a fake pocket.  And by the way, what is the point of having that phony pocket?  The rest of my capri's have no pocket at all.

So, anyway, laundry coin thief that I obviously am, I immediately added the eighty-seven cents to my change jar which is about 1/3 full.  And it  has taken more than a year to get it to that level.  Even if Tim wanted to prosecute me for laundry coin thievery, it's not exactly the crime of the century.

I'm not  certain why I feel no remorse over commandeering laundry change.  But I don't. Never did. Probably never will. I don't even feel guilty about not feeling guilty and that is totally out of character.   I am shameless. At least in this one instance.

What a rebel.