Hidemi's Rambling No.216

One day in my early teens, I heard a scream from my younger sister’s room. My mother and I went in and my sister was crying over the open drawer of her desk. She said her money was gone. She had stashed all her money in an envelope there by saving her allowances and money as New Year’s gifts from relatives. She had thought the total amounted to well over $1000 and had decided to count for the first time in a long time. But there was less than $500 and she was devastated. My mother lulled her by explaining that was how money was gone. While spending a small amount of money on candies and snacks at a time, it accumulated a big amount in total. ‘That’s why we say money has wings,’ my mother said to her. But my sister insisted she had never bought candies that much and never wasted her money like that because she loved to save. My mother’s theory wouldn’t change though, and she kept telling her that money disappeared slyly while we were unaware. She said, ‘You learned an important lesson today. Now you know what is money.’ Quietly seeing my sister cry hard saying repeatedly that was impossible, I had a clear idea what had happened really. It was I who had regularly stolen her stashed money. I was in junior high school and my allowance was always short for what I wanted. I was constantly in a battle with my mother for a raise and denied. While there were countless things in the world that I wanted to buy, my sister wasn’t interested in buying at all. So, her money was useless and I did a favor by spending it instead of her. My sister’s money had wings all right, and brought me a lot of records, posters, concert tickets and accessories. Neither my mother nor my sister had the slightest idea what I had been doing. And they still don’t know about this…