Moneybags

With all the unrelenting bad news out there, it’s nice to read something that – if not good news in any way,shape, or form – is at least different, somewhat smile-on-the-race inducing, and a good little window into good old human nature.

On Wednesday morning, during rush hour in Indianapolis, the back door of a Brink’s truck opened on I-70, and moneybags flew out onto the highway. The estimate is that $600K was all of a sudden out there for the taking. Some of the moneybags just landed intact. Others spilled their guts, and all of a sudden cash was strewn across the four-lane interstate and piling up on the shoulders.

People being people, they do what people do:

A school bus driver knew what he would do, the police said. He pulled over on the highway, jumped out from the driver’s seat and grabbed some cash before driving away. So did four men in a white pickup truck who snatched an entire bag and then sped off…At some point during the mayhem, word must have spread to people living in the residential area off the interstate in West Indianapolis. They started jumping fences and frantically stuffing their pockets with cash. “Sort of something out of a movie scene, where you have bills, loose bills flying all over the interstate, vehicles stopping, people getting out of their cars,” Cpl. Brock McCooe of the Indiana State Police told WXIN-TV, the Fox affiliate in Indianapolis. (Source: NY Times)

I hope that the school bus was empty. It would hardly have been edifying for the kids to watch while Grandpa Friendly went on his loot grab. Even worse, what if the kiddoes had joined in? How much fun Show & Tell would have been at school that day.

Anyway, I’m going to split a hair here. Scooping up loose cash is one thing. Okay, if that loose cash is appearing in large multiples, it’s obvious that it didn’t just drop out of someone’s pocket. But it’s pretty much human nature to just jump at it without thinking about it. And I’m guessing that plenty of those who hoovered up cash are embarrassed that this was their first impulse.

Who doesn’t like free money?

One of my earliest memories was finding a ten-dollar bill at Crane’s Beach. I was four years old at the time, and ten bucks in 1954 was a lot of moola. My delight in finding that type of fortune was magnified that my father and my sister had both walked by the folded bill, sticking up there, probably blending in with the beach grass. And I spied it with my little eye. (Do I reveal what an odd-ball I am, how devoid my life has apparently been of peak moments, that finding that ten-dollar bill remains a high point of my life?)

A few years ago, I found $40 on the sidewalk on Charles Street. No one was around. And $40 certainly isn’t material enough – at least IMHO – to bring into the police station. Even at this low amount, I would have turned it in it had been in a wallet or pocketbook or even an envelope. And a higher amount – more than $100 or maybe more than $200, an amount someone might have missed - I would have brought it into BPD, even if I knew in my heart of hearts that it was never going to find its way to its rightful owner. But it was spare cash just lying there. Lucky me.

Right after Christmas, I found $50 on Boylston Street. I should have given it all to the guy who was panhandling nearby, but I only gave him ten bucks. The rest went to picking up a few things at the post-Christmas sale at Crate & Barrel.

I feel no guilt about any of these “finds”.

Anyway, maybe those people leaping fences and stuffing their pockets with loosies were just going on impulse. Not thinking about whose money it was, just thinking, ‘hey, free money.’ No doubt many felt remorse after the fact. As in WTF did I just do here? But I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that many of them may be fundamentally honest folks who just got caught up in the moment.

Whisking away a Brinks moneybag, however?

Ain’t no impulse in the world that wouldn’t be tempered by the consciousness that if you keep a Brinks bag full of sorted and banded cash you’re taking something that doesn’t belong to you.

So I think those guys in the white van who made off with a bag had larceny in their hearts. But, as I said, I’m somewhat sympathetic to the free-range cash folks.

Many years ago, have a small scale incident somewhat akin to the case of the loose money grabbers.

I was going through the toll at the NH Turnpike which, back then, was a basket system that took your quarters. I tossed in my quarters, but one missed the mark. So I got out of the car and picked it up and tossed it into the basket. But there were a whole bunch of quarters on the ground and, without giving it a thought that these were quarters that had missed the basket, I picked up a few and drove off. In fact, I remember thinking that it was peculiar that there were all those quarters on the ground.A few miles up the road it occurred to me that these quarters had been intended to pay a toll and weren’t just lying around there, free for the taking. Oh.

No, I didn’t drive back and return the quarters – they were worth a dollar or two – but, in retrospect, I’m a bit ashamed I didn’t throw them in the basket next time I used the NH Turnpike. And relieved, all these years later, that there were no security cams, and that I wasn’t pulled over by a state trooper. I can imagine trying to explain that it really hadn’t occurred to me that I was stealing from the Live Free or Die state.

Back home again, in Indiana:

Within minutes, the cash grab was over. State troopers blocked traffic on the highway, helped Brink’s employees collect what remained of the money and warned people that they would be arrested if they pocketed any of it. The officers didn’t find it amusing.

…“People know right from wrong and anyone we track down who kept a dollar of this money will be arrested for theft,” First Sgt. Bill Dalton said in a statement. “The time to do the right thing and call us to turn in the money is now, because once we knock on your door, you won’t be able to avoid being arrested.” 

The po-po are going to arrest everyone who kept a buck from this weird windfall? Seriously, folks. But if I were the guys with the Brinks bag, I might consider dropping it off somewhere.

Anyway, fun little story to break up the noisome news that’s crowding everything else out of my mindspace.