Someone Else's Dollar

Like most people this past weekend, I went to go watch the Hunger Games. Luckily I did not have to wait in line for good seats. But we did buy a large drink and a $4 BOX OF CANDY (why, conglomerate why!), and a few minutes before the movie started I rushed to the restroom to drain my bladder.

After bursting into the stall in the ladies' room I saw something every frugal person would love to see:

There was one very crisp dollar bill on top of the toilet-paper-roll-plastic-container (someone please give this thing a name!). It was sleeping peacefully, laid out neatly, with nil a crease nor fold on the corner. As if some old lady gently laid it out there, as if it were delicate laundry to dry.

I thought, should I take the money? I was tempted. I looked at it. I touched it. I flipped it over, and flipped it back. I looked around to see if there were cameras. Hey, I've read a lot about social experiments.

Then I thought, well this ISN'T lost money. Lost money is a crumpled folded up dollar or coins in an empty street. Lost money is the lint-ridden bill in the corner of the public laundry machine.

No, someone deliberately put the dollar bill on this shelf, if not only laid to wait patiently.

..So I left it alone. It was only a dollar, after all. Someone else can have the karma of smuggling it in their wallet.

Lo and behold, once I exited the stall, there was a little girl, doe-eyed, waiting impatiently in front of my stall. She's not even looking at me, but eyeing the insides of the stall. As my last foot exits the barrier of the stall, she rushes in, grabs the dollar, and walks out.

Wow, I thought. I almost took this girl's money! The little angel on my shoulder patted me on the back. Of course, I'm assuming it's the girl's money.

It begs to ask when "lost" money becomes your money. When is it okay to keep it for yourself? Is it ever? Is there a limit to how much "found" money is okay to keep? Would you have picked up the dollar