An Ethical Dilemma

Tonight on my way home from work, I stopped by a major discount retailer to pick up a couple of plain t-shirts and some sundry items. I had said items in hand and was making a final loop back toward the cash registers when I saw some crumpled paper in the middle of the aisle ahead. As I came closer, I saw that it was money, and I saw the number 20. When I got to it, I picked it up and found that it was TWO twenties. I looked around, and the only person in sight was a very large woman on a motorized cart wearing a pink crochet cap, coming towards me.

"Did you just find some money?"
"Yep."
"It looked like money. I saw it from down there but I wasn't sure. You're going to turn it in, aren't you? I'll go with you over here to the counter." (?)
"Yeah, I guess so, but I think I'll ask some people around here to see if anyone dropped it. There's a lady down there with an open purse and two babies, maybe it was her."
"That's a good idea. Don't tell them how much it is though, or they'll say it's theirs."

So I go from one end of the aisle to the other, asking each person if they might have dropped some cash, and everyone says no, I look up the cash register aisle, to see if there are any little children weeping at the register with a new toy and no way to pay for it, or any women frantically dumping their purses out on the counter. Nothing.

So I put the cash in my back pocket. If it had been a credit card, a check or checkbook, or a wallet, by all means I would have turned it in. I would have felt even better calling the person or the credit card company myself, to avoid possible employee dishonesty.
But cash? Cash has no one's name on it. I asked everyone I could find.
I figure it's a lucky find, and I should use it to do something nice for someone else, or donate to a charity. Finders keepers.

Was I wrong to keep it? Was I cynical to think that if I turned it in to a store employee (the store with the red circle inside the other red circle) that it would go immediately from my pocket to the employee's pocket? Or, as I feared, Mrs. Knittycap would buzz right over there the minute I dropped it off, and feign tears as "her" money was returned to her. Her meddling presence affected my behavior, though I can't say how I would have done things differently if she hadn't been badgering me.

I had this thought as I walked to my car: that maybe the woman on the cart was really God, and that was a test to get into heaven and I failed. I don't know if he or she will be watching when/if I do the right thing with the money in the end, so that can be the makeup quiz, or if it's just pass/fail. Save me a seat by the fire.

At this time I would like to apologize for my negative portrayal of one of the cheerleaders in high school whose name has been deleted from my blog as, in the end, she did invite me to go along with her to the New Year's Eve party, even though it turned out to suck. She was just trying to be nice and make a friend. I say that not because I hope the incarnation of the supreme being wearing the pink crochet hat and rhinestone studded Disney logo glasses will forgive me, but because I recently re-read that post and I felt bad for not giving her credit for that. I'll bet she's come a long way from where she was then, as I have.