Published in The Clifton Courier, February 22, 2017

I stumbled upon a sum of cash on the way home from the train station the other day and had an ethical crisis.

My first instinct was to snatch it up, with a voice in my head shouting, “woooo free money” and setting off metaphorical party poppers in my mind.

But as soon as I picked it up, I was thrown into turmoil.

Did someone see and report me to the authorities?

What if this money was left here as some kind of drug deal?

Is this a set up hidden camera thing?*

*I sound like I am being paranoid, but I live in Sydney now, which is a major city. And because it’s a major city, it’s a major hazard for this kind of shit.  The last thing I want is to accidentally end up on The Chaser’s War on Everything looking like a thieving scumbag. If I’m going to appear on he ABC I’d prefer it to be on Grand Designs because I’m building my low-impact dream home. Not because I’m a stingebot.

I generally assume someone is watching me all the time. Not in a Hilary Duff Someone’s Watchin’ Over Me kind of way, but more in a fascinated surveillance way.

Most of the time, my imagined stalker keeps me from doing gross/embarrassing/incriminating things, especially while alone. It’s what will stop me from smelling my belly button lint, for example.*

* Do you have any idea how hard it is to not smell something that you know is going to be disgusting? It’s like pressing a bruise or reading Miranda Devine – something you feel as a semi-decent human being you know is wrong but you can’t stop yourself from doing. This imagined stalker is the backbone of whatever dignity I had. It may be unhelathy, but without pretending I’m being watched by some sicko I would be a complete scrubber. And if I didn’t feed this delusion, my “behind closed doors” activity would put me at real risk of blackmail should someone stalk me for real.

But an actual hidden camera stalker would be most unhelpful. I didn’t want to be part of some social experiment that ends up on some wanker’s YouTube prank channel. So, over-exaggerating my movements for even the most distant of cameras to pick up, I looked around to try determine if a person in the vicinity dropped it.

There was no one within a 10 metre radius, and only one guy 50 metres from me.

But just because the person who lost this money wasn’t around me, doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. I didn’t earn that money. I wasn’t given it. I had no claim of ownership over it.

So the voice in my head called me a thief.

Sure, I’ll borrow a bit of oil from my housemate if I’ve run out, but I generally veer away from stealing.

The first thing I ever stole was a pack of Pocahontas stickers from the newsagency when Mr and Mrs Young ran it.* The pack was stuck to a magazine cover as a free gift. Being about four I didn’t understand the concept of money (and arguably, still haven’t fully grasped some aspects about it i.e. spending it wisely) and my moral compass wasn’t great. So I grabbed it.**

*Marion Young was fabulous. She smoked with gay abandon, always had tasteful lipstick on and had this wonderful dry wit. Some people thought she was a crankypants, but I thought she was a sassy diamond. I’m glad I went to her funeral. They played Bette Midler’s Wind Beneath My Wings.

**I have to admit, I was concerned about admiting to my past criminal behaviour in black and white print. But I have yet to be rounded up by the sheriff. And while I do still have some trepidations about detailing my past crimes online, I think. I may jsut get away with this grand heist. 

I don’t think my parents ever found out about it (sorry if you’re only just discovering now that you raised a criminal) but my older sister did. And she gave me hell for it. The fact that I can remember this suggests it was quite traumatic, which, given my sisters’ vocal abilities, I don’t doubt.

So apparently still living with the emotional scars of that experience, I tend to be to be so adverse to thievery that I can’t even steal someone’s joke. I always follow a repeated joke with a “my sister actually thought of that…”

Finding money on the ground isn’t exactly stealing, but the high-pitched voice of my conscience told me it’s basically the same thing.

But then the deadpan voice of reason kicked in and told me that returning the cash to its rightful owner would be difficult, if not impossible. And reporting it to the police also wouldn’t be realistic.

And the slimy desperate voice in my head who usually only chimes in to justify my behaviour when I’ve done something rash added a valid point. If I had have left it there, it would have gone into the gutter.

And it was due to rain. And then it would have been washed away. And because I trust Disney Pixar would never lie to me, I assumed that when Gill told Nemo, “all drains lead to the ocean” it was true. So that money would’ve ended up in the ocean and could block the airway of turtle if I hadn’t have intervened.

So there was there was nothing else for it.

I pocketed that five bucks and went on my way.