Mysterious Money

A long, three hours of tutoring and two hours of conversing with two sets of varied people later, and I found myself at home, scavenging through my purse, counting my week's takings when I noticed something out of the ordinary - I had sixty extra dollars laying in the between the creases of bankcards and IDs.

A crispy golden fifty dollar note, crunched up along a rustic blue ten dollar note, both sitting tightly in one compartment of my purse. I closed my purse, zipping it tightly, then unzipped it, expecting some sort of hallucination from the inhalation of too much nail-polish smell after my shower in the early hours of the day. The two notes sat there. I touched them - yes, they were real. I had thought this was strange because they certainly were not my notes, seeing as the ten dollar note was creased in a corner - I normally put my money, however low the value, immaculately into my purse. These notes appeared that they had been left there by somebody who has been hearing my constant petrol price complaints.

Rationally, I left my purse on my desk and headed to the bedroom and asked my sister, who, after showing a rather confused look on her face, answered, "no, I have not been home all day." So then I headed for the bathroom where my mother was seated, excuse the imagery you may or may not have just gotten from reading that, and I asked her, to which she responded "no, I didn't put it there." As soon as I turned my back, both of them pleaded otherwise jokingly, in hopes of scoring an additional sixty dollars.

Then it occurred to me. I received that amount in the first half of my evening, from my first student's mother. How could I have forgotten? Perhaps that amount of money was pressed so tightly to her left breast, yes, that is where my wages for teaching her son comes from, that it was permanently creased to a point where I would refuse to think that such a state belonged in my purse at all, despite the fact that I was tiresome for teaching him for two whole hours. 

Then I began to wonder, if I ever have the chance to travel to America and exchanged my Australian money into American money, paper-like and easy to crease, would I forget that I was in America and completely freak out thinking I had stolen someone's wallet when I look down at my money? I probably would, even if I had a mini-freak-out, inside my mind. I easily freak out about things, like today when I mistook my rollerball pen for my fountain pen, both of which are the exact size, colour and build on the outside. 

And had not I remembered that I taught a student for two hours today and received money, I wonder who I would have given that sixty dollars to - my mother or my sister?