I've been tidying up the house mainly as an excuse to avoid work. But everything needs to be uncluttered and I've decided to get rid of stuff that I don't need or use. Oh yes, some charity shop is about to get a right bucket load of crap.
One of the things I was donating was my iPod running belt, which was designed to fit my old iPod and which is no use for the new one. So that went in the Virgin Gym rucksack that I have never used and will use just once to transport it and my other garbage to the charity shop.
But then I remembered that I usually used to take money with me on my runs in case I got tired and fancied a drink, or really tired and fancied a taxi, so I checked the internal pockets of the belt and hooplah-ha-lay, there was twenty quid in one side. Twenty free pounds. Admittedly it was my money, but it was money I had forgotten about and thus counted as being given free money. What a shame for whoever buys my belt (and who wants to buy a second hand running belt - only a skanky skank). They would have had a lovely surprise after paying a fiver only to discover they had made a substantial profit at charity's expense (I am sure if that happened to my dad he would take the money back to the shop, but anyone else would have kept it).
It would only have got better for them as I checked the other pocket and found a Caffe Nero loyalty card (from one of the times I stopped for coffee rather than carrying on running) with one stamp on it. They would have been a mere eight stamps away from a free coffee. To go along with the ten free coffees they could buy with my twenty pounds.
But now I get the money and the ninth of a coffee so I am a real winner.
Today I was out and about in Hammersmith, failing to work, drinking coffee and going to the gym. I saw the twenty pounds in my wallet (it was slightly faded and thus easily identified) and wondered what I should spend it on. But a part of me felt that I should save the free money for some special occasion or buy myself something special with it. Or maybe keep it forever in my wallet, unspent, for luck, to be passed on to my nearest and dearest in the event of my demise. It could be a lucky charm for the rest of my life. But then again, how likely was it going to be that at some point, in a drunken state or stuck in the rain needing a cab with no other funds, I wouldn't spend it, by either accident or design?
So I bought some groceries with it at Marks and Spencers. I know the credit crunch is hitting them hard, so it seems only right to spend some of my pre-credit crunch millions (of pence) on helping them out. Not that twenty quid gets you very much at M&S. But it's still free food by anyone's standards.
