The Past and Future of a Five-Dollar Bill

Today I found a wadded up five-dollar bill on one of the landings of one of the sets of stairs heading up to where I work this morning.

How did it get there?

I am a terrible detective (I never properly deduce endings of mysteries), but it's good to practice.

Since it was wadded up, I'm going to guess it was stuffed into a tight pocket, perhaps someone's front pants pocket. Guys are more likely to have pants pockets than gals, so there's another guess. It might have been stuffed there because he was in a hurry. Since it was right out in plain sight, I'll guess it wasn't there long, so it was dropped earlier this morning than I found it, not the night before.

So, he paid $10 for a bagel or fancy coffee and got $5 plus change and stuffed it in his pocket. (No ones were wadded up with the five.)

Then, on the stair landing, he suddenly decided to pull something else out of his pocket which he had put in there before he'd stuffed the five in there, and so the money fell out. I'm going to guess a cell phone. Someone called, he pulled out out the phone to talk and kept walking, still in a hurry.

By the time I arrived, no one was around.

So now I'm thinking it would be fun to get myself something special with this. What special things can you get for five dollars?

My first thought is that I don't want anything. Yeah, right. I buy stuff all month long because I don't want anything?

Then I thought I could buy a book. A used book for cheap plus $3 for media shipping, and there's the five bucks. I can't think of a book I'm dying to have just now, though (that I or Robin don't already have).

Then I thought of fancy ribbon. I could get that wide ribbon with wire in the edges to wrap presents with, in some colors that go with grocery-bag brown.

I'm going to think a little longer and see if I can come up with something even more special.