Eleven: Five Dollars (07-22-2022)
On occasion, fortune will favor the patient. Five dollars, a relatively crisp, relatively clean five dollar bill on the ground. No wind to blow it away, no prying eyes around to claim ownership or look down on the desperate type who may pick it up. Five free dollars is a luxury, a small break from the monotony of the modern world, and an opportunity for a frivolous financial decision. The only question: what to do with five dollars?
There is a convenience store around the corner from the office, the obvious stop with five dollars on a Friday. It's a corporate place, an international chain, but its prices beat out the local corner stores and would be the place to go to get the most of these five free dollars. However, this convenience store is fully loaded, with a smorgasbord of snacks, drinks, and microwave meals. Deciding on what best to spend five dollars on would be arduous, and a place with less selection would make the decision less stressful.
Wasn't there a vending machine at the office? The first two floors were just renovated, no one's moved in but for some reason the thought is pestering that there was a vending machine down there. A vending machine would be the perfect place for five dollars, it's got a very limited selection, the kind of casual luxury that five dollars necessitates. A couple snacks, some Famous Amos cookies or fruit snacks. Maybe this five dollars would be good for a pack of vending machine beef jerky. Again, it's not clear if there was or wasn't a vending machine in the office and there's definitely none nearby otherwise. It would be weird to peek around the first two floors when no one's there to look and confirm. The convenience store is a better choice then, since it certainly exists.
Instead of being vain and spending this five dollars on snacks, which would go off a good diet anyway, it's probably better to spend it on something more charitable. A homeless person would appreciate five dollars, and would have less trouble deciding what to spend it on, except that that choice might be to spend it on drugs, which would be a net negative compared to not giving it to a homeless person and spending it for personal use. There is the option to go to the convenience store and only buy something necessary, like a water because of the heat, and drop the change in the donation bin. There is a coffee shop nearby, and a cheap coffee with a 100% tip would be charitable too, but it's too late in the day for coffee. Thinking now, a lot of people with money to spend will do the kind thing and pay for someone else's food or coffee, so five dollars could go to someone else's coffee and five dollars out of pocket for a personal coffee, but that might be an awkward situation with thank yous and you're welcomes, which is worth five dollars to avoid.
What to do with five dollars? Saving it is always a safe option, keeping it in a wallet until a good opportunity, the right moment, arises to spend it. The wallet's already got a good few bucks waiting for the same situation, and another five might push it over the edge and a good chance will appear. Then again, the five dollars might face the same fate of waiting for a good opportunity, and end up never spent. Once the feeling of spontaneity wears off, the chance to be frivolous won't come, probably not until another dollar is seen on the ground somewhere. If only there was a simple answer, something needed that cost a mere five dollars, something that would be stressless to spend on, but everything is too expensive, too unhealthy if it isn't.
It's just five dollars though. Thankfully no one can read thoughts, they'd certainly find it strange to spend any time contemplating how to spend five dollars. Everyone's got five dollars to spare, it's hardly a thought to spend it. But this five dollars was free, it demands to be spent in a certain way, fitting its unique acquisition and to acknowledge and maximize its role in this life as a lucky event. It should be easy to decide, or maybe thinking about it makes it harder. The moment will come up, and can't be created. That's the right answer. It's not waiting, it is the wait. The contemplation and decision making is not decision making at all, but anticipation of the moment to spend it approaching. Excitement picking up the five dollars becomes anticipation. A lucky moment creates a period of positive emotion.
Is this positive emotion? Does the feeling of indecision qualify as positive? Or is it just anticipation? Five dollars, just five dollars, is nothing to stress about.