Pick It Up

I met some family today in Billings and went out for lunch with them. We try to get together for "special events" and with my oldest daughter's and my birthday coming up this week, that qualified. While I was paying the bill for our meal I remembered a really bad habit I had for a few years as a kid.<br />n<br />nI was around 10 years old and I noticed that when we ate out my parents always left a little money on the table. Then they went and paid for the meal so I knew it wasn't for the meal but I wasn't sure what it was for. I was really bad when I was younger about not asking questions about things like this. I tried to figure them out myself. This one confused me. I studied it and studied it and couldn't figure out why they were leaving the money on the table. Finally I decided to watch and see what happened to the money.<br />n<br />nAs we were leaving one day I told my folks I had to use the bathroom as they left. I hid around the corner from where we sat and watched until I saw that the waitress pocketed the money. Oh this confused me. I checked it out a few more times and sure enough, the waitress picked up the money every time. What right did she have to it? I wasn't sure why it was there but that didn't seem right. <br />n<br />nI thought about this for awhile and finally came to the conclusion somehow that i needed the money worse than the waitress so I started picking it up. I must have known that it was wrong because I always contrived to be the last one leaving the table and as I left I would pick the money up. I know now how bad what I was doing was but I didn't realize it at the time.<br />n<br />nI continued this practice for quite a few years and got a fair sum of money before I finally understood what I was doing was wrong. I still am a little ashamed of the whole thing but what can I do about it? <br />n<br />nLeaving the tip today reminded me of all of this. Damn that was a lot of moons ago but the memory is still clear about doing this.<br />n<br />n<strong>A strange thing is memory, and hope; one looks backward, and the other forward; one is of today, the other of tomorrow. Memory is history recorded in our brain, memory is a painter, it paints pictures of the past and of the day. Anna Mary Robertson Moses</strong>