Finding twenty bucks

The New Hotness
By Chhun Sun
The Collegian

After I registered less than four hours of sleep, I walked to school with a dreadful face. I was tired. Every part of my body was worn out from the previous night, which I had spent dancing at a local nightclub to every Lil’ Jon song that has ever been made.

And I just didn’t like that particular Friday, a day that with two term papers due before 5 p.m. and I didn’t have a word written at 8 a.m.

Just for fun, I took a path I usually don’t take. That was when my mood took a dramatic shift. I spotted a new, slightly folded $20 bill near my feet. I thought long and hard before I picked it up.

My first inclination was that it was a fake — and Ashton Kutcher was waiting in the nearest bush to jump out and say, “You got punk’d!” Then I realized he would never come to Fresno.

Then I thought a group of University High School students were playing a crude and immature joke on me. I thought they had attached an invisible string to the bill and when I would bend over and reach for it, they’d pull the money from me and I’d hurt my poor little back at the same time, while they laughed their butts off.

But I took a chance. I stepped on the bill with my shoe, all while I was pivoting my foot to see if anyone was watching. Then I bent over and with the quickness of Mr. Miyagi, I snatched the money from the ground and put it in my pocket.

I walked away from the scene and immediately thought about the time when I was about 9 years old and found a $10 bill in my apartment complex’s laundry room. As soon as I got my hands on it, I sprinted like an Asian Carl Lewis to the nearest convenience store.

Five minutes later, I walked out with the biggest smile the world has ever seen, as well as two handfuls of candy and two packs of basketball cards.

But that was then. This is now. Or, I mean, last Friday.

Throughout my excitement, I didn’t think about the person who the money had originally belonged to.

Maybe the person was walking from school and was heading to his or her apartment manager’s office, and the $20 fell from the person’s roll of money.

Nah, I don’t think so.

Then again, I couldn’t help but think about who the owner was. That was when I started thinking about what I should do with the money I was now lightly massaging in my pocket. The decision was not easy, folks.

I thought about using my next column to let people know I found a $20 bill and it was waiting for its owner to claim it. Then reality struck and I realized anyone could say the money was his or hers — when it really wasn’t.

What was he or she going to say? That he or she knows the serial number of the bill? That’s as unlikely as San Jose State beating Fresno State in football.

It’s so unrealistic.

Then I thought about buying The Collegian staff pizza and soda.

Then I thought about going to the nearest convenience store and buying two packs of basketball cards, but I said to myself, “The upcoming season doesn’t have many good rookies whose cards will be worth money. So it’s not going to be a good investment.”

Then a colleague told me to do something very noble: He told me to donate the money to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina relief foundation.

And yes, folks, that’s what I did.

I gave it to my club, the Cambodian Collegiate Club, to give it to the Red Cross.

So to the mystery person who dropped that $20 bill: The Red Cross thanks you for your generosity, voluntary or not.

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