Update

I am seldom so happy to be wrong!

Given my heartbroken post last week and the heartfelt replies I received, I simply must report this.

My ten dollars was found!

I've been on the serving line since the incident. Shocker. My supervisor assured me that they were simply shorthanded and she needed me on the line, but I knew better. I'd screwed up. And it put me into a deeper funk over the whole thing.

So this afternoon, as I cleared away uneaten food and Cathy counted up her cash at the end of shift, she noticed something odd in the drawer. Something really far back. Something really wedged, almost totally concealed in the wheeled workings of the pop-out register drawer. After a little finagling, she pulled out...a ten-dollar bill.

Wouldn't you know, I'd checked the drawer. Multiple times. Lifted out the plastic cash divider and looked under it and everything. Believe me, I will exhaust every option before coming to the conclusion that I've been betrayed.

All I can figure is that most of the scenario remains the same. I was in the middle of separating and counting the cash, and I did wander too far from it for a minute without remembering to lock up. But rather than the bill being lifted from my drawer by sticky fingers, it caught on something as the drawer was closed and re-opened, and somehow got pulled to the back. Where, after several openings and closings, it became thoroughly wedged in the back wheels of the drawer.

Cathy ran her figures without the extra ten first, and balanced. My heart soared. "They didn't steal from me!"

"Yeah, well," she said. "Don't think they wouldn't. There are plenty of kids here who would, given half a chance."

Well, she may be right. But today, my friends. Today they are exonerated, and all is right in my world.

Shanghaied Sawbuck

Honestly, I'm not sure if it's a blessing or a curse.

As I've said, I generally think the best of people. I really do. It's not naivete - I've been around the block a time or two - I seem to be hardwired to be naturally trusting and optimistic even when I know better. The upside to this is a generally sunny disposition and low blood pressure. The downside is that when people DO disappoint me, it hurts. A lot.

Anyway. My day.

Now, I've worked at Jack-in-the-Box. I've worked at Wal-Mart three times over the years. Hell, I've worked at Wal-Mart in the Electronics Department at Christmas. And every time I've run a register, it's balanced to the penny at the end of my shift. And I started the same way at this job, too. But lately my totals have been screwed up a lot lately, usually because of a mathematical error on my part, causing me to hold everyone up while I recount and check deposit reports until I find where I don't agree. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe it's the fact that the ventilation system broke and it's been around 100 degrees in the cafeteria the last several shifts I've worked. Maybe I'm just going senile at the ripe old age of thirty-something. But it's making the perfectionist in me scream.

Today, I said, I'm done. I will be triply careful, and I will balance the first time. And I paid meticulous attention to my counts. So when my total came up TEN DOLLARS short today, I knew I'd finally balanced to the penny. Because I also knew precisely that I was missing one ten-dollar bill from the currency. I'd walked away from my drawer for thirty seconds after my shift and forgotten that I hadn't yet locked the door where the kids come in to my line - something I usually do as soon as the last student is gone. And then there wasn't a ten where a ten should have been.

One of the children stole from me today.

Fervently hoping that I was wrong, I dashed back to my terminal to look for the ten. Perhaps it had fallen on the floor or under my register. I got down on my knees and scanned under everything; then still on my knees, I lowered my head to the floor and cried.

We recounted everything to make sure it really wasn't a miscalculation, and then my supervisor said she'd document the missing ten for me. I really don't care. It was ten dollars. I would gladly have replaced it from my purse. Heck, I probably won't even be at this job next year. I cried because I was just so hurt and disappointed that any of 'my kids' would steal from me. I know better than to believe every one of them would pass up the opportunity to swipe money from my drawer...but I still believed it.

Sometimes, I really wish I didn't think so highly of people.