50 dollar bill

You cannot hide things from me or keep secrets because somehow I will always figure it out. Especially if you live with me. Like my husband -- I always figure out gifts or secrets because he can't cover his trails. And it's not like I'm exactly looking for things; I just always come across stuff.

So remember when he stole my dollar bill? And insisted he didn't steal it, but just found it, so that makes it all okay to take?

Well, today I found a 50 dollar bill.

I was cleaning up our bedroom, and I was going to put his work name tag in one of his "man" boxes on the dresser. The first thing I noticed when I opened it up was that it was stuffed full of receipts. I mean, a lot of receipts. The first one was a Staples receipt. When I pulled the bundle out, I noticed a 50 dollar bill wrapped up in the receipts. Interesting, I thought. I looked at the Staples receipt and couldn't make any sense of it, so I put everything back and stuck his name tag in his man box.

I pondered if I should say anything or not. My husband likes to squirrel things away from me, and it's not necessarily hiding things, but more putting things in weird places and I have to go on a treasure hunt trying to find them. And he always hoards money whenever he sells CDs at work (he sells them to get money). He figures that's "his money," and he doesn't have to share with me. During hard times, this is very annoying. But I've gotten used to it.

He has more money squirreled away in another box on the dresser. This was only a secret to him because I took his birthday money from 2 years ago and put it in there. I only recently told him where it was. He was surprised he had so much money. I was thinking that maybe he put the 50 in the other box because he got confused. A man should really only have one maybe two man boxes.

Ah, screw it, I thought. I'll ask him about it.

I went into his room. "Why are you hiding 50 bucks from me?" I asked.

He turned and looked at me all baffled. "What? Why do you always do this! Damn you! I was saving it!" he said.

"But why're you hiding it from me?"

"I wasn't hiding it from you. I was saving it."

"What's up with all the receipts?" I asked.

"Oh....those are from gifts I bought you. In case you wanted to return them," he told me.

"Man, that's a lot of receipts. Are you keeping them for sentimental value?"

"No!"

"The 50 dollar bill was wrapped up in receipts and stuffed in a box. If that's not hiding, then I don't know what is."

"I wasn't hiding it," he said.

I walked out and went into the other room. But then I remembered my missing 1 dollar bill. That was wrapped in a receipt. Just like his 50 dollar bill.

I went back into his room.

"So, since we agreed that if money is just lying around and one of us comes across it, then we can take it and call it our own...Then I can take the 50!" I told him.

"I'll tell you what it's for! I was saving it for Christmas so I didn't have to use the credit card because you'd just freak out! Okay? You happy now? You ruin everything!"

"Oh...okay. But I just find it interesting that my dollar was wrapped in a receipt and so is your 50, and you just took my dollar...."

"I'll give you the dollar back!" he told me.

"No, I'd rather have the 50." I laughed as I walked out of the room.

He is just a man of mystery, I tell you. What gets me is that I bought one of those "I Love You" cards to give to him, but never got around to it. It was sitting in a bag on his side of the dresser next to him man boxes. And he never once looked into the bag or asked me what the card was for.

Now that's how you hide stuff.