Finders Keepers

I was about five. We were still living with grandmother. It was our morning routine that I’d follow her to the market every morning. By market, it was simply a truck filled with various farm produce parked beside the lane in the neighborhood. It was an important place for the trading of two commodities, first the produce and then gossips, or was it the other way around.

I remember that morning vividly. We got there a little early. There weren’t a lot of ladies around yet. Grandmother was busy with shopping and I was allowed to hang around the produce truck. I was squatting down next to the truck, fiddling with the fishes in the bucket. Then something on the ground caught my eyes. It was a red paper on the ground. It was a ten-ringgit note! I scurried over, scooped up the tenner and stuffed it into my shirt in like three nanoseconds! Then I tried very hard to play it cool but I was just about to burst out hollering with the incredible joy of “I found 10 bucks!” I just wanted to get home ASAP and tell grandmother about my little fortune. The feeling was as if I found a fortune! Well back then ten bucks worth a lot to a five year old.

I was one hell of a happy kid that morning!

A couple of night ago, I headed to the car park for my car after work, cutting across the fountain park as usual. I was almost dragging my feet along, head hanging down low as I was beat from a long day as well as the hour-long workout. I just wanted to get home ASAP and get some chow down. Then I stepped onto a piece of paper on the sidewalk and it jolted me a bit. It was a green fifty-ringgit note. “Is this for real? Or am I just hallucinating?”

“Wow, that’s a lot of dough!” Being bigger, quicker and stronger now, I scooped the note up like a super reflex reaction, in barely 0.2 nanoseconds! This time around I just stood there, holding the note in my hand, looked around at the trickling flow of foot traffic, in my head questioning how could they have missed this.

“Is this some comedy prank show from TV?” Quickly, I swirled around looking for out-of-place characters or even hidden cameras. Everything seemed normal. But as I walked away I was anticipating the TV people jumped out from nowhere shouting “Gotcha! You greedy dog!” Oh my, I’ve been watching way too much TV!

The whole thing did not feel right. It was just too good to be true. I felt bad, perhaps a little guilty taking the money actually. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because I did not earn it. It felt like cheating to me, somehow. But whom was I cheating? And how?

Driving home I remembered that happy morning when I was five. It hit me like a sledgehammer, realizing a day and night contrast: I did not feel the slightest joy of finding the 50-buck note. Instead there were doubt and skepticism. I kept thinking there must be a catch somewhere, there’s no free lunch in this world. Well in this case free dinner. This was too sweet of a deal. It was unreal.

It was exactly the same situation some twenty-five years ago but things did not seem so complicated. Why? Am I incapable of being happy now? Boy, I am turning into a drama queen.

Perhaps I’m too caught up with this growing up and being successful business that I lost the inner child in me. Perhaps the office politics, the long hours and the traffic jams numb my most simple and natural feelings. Perhaps I’ve been subconsciously building up a shield to protect myself and to survive this dog eat dog world that I’m trapped within my own cage.

Now I am a drama queen!

The truth is there wasn’t any elated emotion picking up the note that night (so not Chinese!) and that had to do with the fact that things been insanely hectic lately.

I just wished I was five again.