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Four pages and a rifle through the hostess' guest book later, the manager informed me that it was my lucky day and I should probably spend my $40 on lottery tickets as he shooed us out the door. He found a carryout order for a Janice in the book, but no phone number and no guarantee that it was her.

So, we're back on the sidewalk, one part wanting to do a backflip because hey! Free money! The other part wallowing in, what? A weird form of money survivor's guilt? "We found the money here, and there's a hotel 20 feet away. She probably got carryout and was walking to her hotel room when she dropped her stuff," I said.

"I'm not going to the hotel and knocking on doors. We've done what we can," said my morally questionable husband.

I was thinking about all the things that lead to this money coming to us. Had B. not come home an hour and a half early from work, it wouldn't have happened. Had we eaten in the car, it wouldn't have happened. Had I not needed to buy a bottle of water for my dogs, we wouldn't have found it. By that token, maybe the dogs are the rightful owners of the $40.

I'm not giving $40 to my dogs. They'll just spend it on crank and hookers.

I think about things too much.

To celebrate our newfound fistful of someone else's hard-earned cash wealth, we went through the drive-thru of a brand-spanking-new Starbuck's that had just opened that day and will probably injure the two locally-owned coffeehouses that are a mile away. If we're going to be scoundrels, we're going all the way, Baby!

Lo and behold, what's on the menu? Pumpkin spice lattes! I wasn't expecting them for weeks! Maybe all is well and I'm just having a lucky day. But. But! Purchasing this surprise delicacy at the evil green behemouth with ill-gotten cash can't be good. There's going to be a large chicken bone in my pumpkin spice latte, and it's going to lodge in my throat and I'm going to die a slow, painful, surprisingly nutmeggy death!

But I didn't choke, and my latte was perfect. Not only that, but the cute barista professed his love to me.

Okay, a side story: There's a guy who works at the Starbucks I occasionally frequent, and I adore him. His espresso's always perfect, and he's always so sweet and friendly. I can feel like crap when I arrive, and I always walk away feeling a little more sparkly afterwards. He's a dead ringer, physically and personality-wise, for my friend Big Daddy B.

Well, we pulled up to the drive-thru to spend $8 of Janice Andrukaitis' hard-earned cash on frivilous non-fair trade certified coffee, and there's Big Daddy Barista. I asked if he wasn't at the other store anymore, to which he gasped, clutched his chest, stammered and yelled, "Oh my God! I love you! You recognize me! No, I'm just helping out here for a few days."

Who's world am I living in? Certainly not mine, because I don't find money, get good coffee and get lavished with love from a cute gay man in my world.

Anyway, this money. I know it's not much, but it certainly made our weekend more enjoyable. We had coffee. I bought some beautiful fabric to make myself a quilt. See? Found money is making me selfish. I probably should have spent the entire $40 on fabric for charity quilts. There's probably some sort of toxic dye in the fabric that's going to slowly poison our blood as B. and I slumber under it. The Guberburgers we ate on Saturday afternoon probably contained the milligrams of cholesterol that will eventually kill us.

I'm just not good at accepting the surprise goodies the universe throws my way. Oh, I've got anticipation for the bad shit the universe throws my way down to a science. But the good stuff? I find myself eaten up with guilt and paranoia. Nevermind that I've been worried about Janice Andrukaitis all weekend, and hoping that the $40 was just a drop in the bucket to her.

These things even out. I mean, I'm sure the amount of money I've carelessly dropped over the years adds up to well over $40. B. had a $150 videogame stolen from his hands last June, a mere three months after he bought it. Today a sippy cup of milk exploded in my purse, nearly ruining a handful of small electronics and some precious childhood photos. When I washed and dried my purse, I accidentally forgot about the two sticks of Japanese orange gum in a hidden pocket, leaving gum all over the drum of my mom's clothes dryer. These things are a way of life not just for me, but for everyone, so the good things do blindside me. Deep down, I know it all evens out. For every chunk of melted gum stuck in an otherwise clean bath towel, there's $40 of Janice Andrukaitis' money waiting for me. And for every $40 Janice Andrukaitis loses, maybe there's some guilt-ridden paranoid loon spreading her name all over the internet in hopes that she'll Google her name when she's bored at work one day.

And if she, Janice Andrukaitis, happens to do that, all she has to do is tell me where she got dinner on Friday, September 1st, and where she purchased gas earlier that day, and maybe we can both find a little balance.