Thursday, May 25, 2006

The Telltale Dime

When I was about 6 or 7, I think, I knocked on a couple of neighbors' doors to see if they would pay me to rake their lawn. One neighbor said yes, and gave me a dime. I think I must have raked for about a minute before I decided that it was really way more strenuous than I'd thought it would be, so I decided to give up and go home. I'm not sure how my mother knew what was going on, but she knew I had been paid a dime and hadn't done the job as promised, so she explained that I had to go back to that neighbor and return the money. I sort of squirmed about it but agreed to give back the dime. But instead, I went outside and buried it in the dirt sidewalk in front of my house. Then I went back inside. My mother laughingly scolded me, saying she had seen me bury the coin, and that now I had to go out and dig it up and give it back for real! Which I did. All in all, it was a pretty humiliating experience, but I guess I learned a lesson.

2 comments:

Single Ma said...

HA HA HA you poor thing.

You could have used the energy spent digging to finish raking the yard and keep the dime.

This reminds me of when I was kid and preferred being paid a nickel instead of a dime because it was bigger. LOL *shaking my head* the things we did as children.

Anonymous said...

Looking back, do you think this had an impact on your life? What was the lesson learned?