They Were Just Stacks of Newspapers
It Was Hidden in Plain Sight, but It Was Torn Down Years Ago. It’s a Walgreens Now.
I stopped by early on a Saturday morning to visit a good friend who owned a local gas station chain, some with service garages. I don’t remember why I was in the neighborhood, except that I wasn’t there to get my car fixed. I was just passing by.
I pulled in to fill up my tank and called my friend. He confirmed that he was in the back and said he would be right out. I filled up and parked off to the side, and by then, he was outside to greet me.
He lead me through one of the two service bays and into a tiny, squat room hidden behind and underneath the rows of new tire inventory. You had to duck to get in, and pretty much stay crouched until you could sit your seat in one of two small chairs surrounding a tiny table. The walls and ceiling were lined with wire racks and shelves holding cases and cases of cigarettes. These racks made the room either more claustrophobic, or more cozy, depending on your outlook.
The tiny table had one huge feature this morning, though… stacks and stacks of cash representing the Friday night haul of perhaps a couple of dozen gas stations with mini-marts that had sold through lots of gas, beer, soda, cigarettes, ginseng supplements, chips, and pine tree air fresheners. It’s a huge cash business still, even with society’s heavy use of debit and credit cards.
I was in the cash room. It was hidden in plain sight. There must have been tens of thousands stacked on the table. My friend had been counting and banding the cash to make the morning’s bank deposit before the banks closed at noon. We chatted about our families and football while he counted and banded.
At one point, my friend was summoned to the mini-mart, and he told me he would be right back. He left and locked the door, leaving me alone with all the cash. It goes to speak of our level of trust in each other, in both directions.
He trusted me to sit there with all that cash because he knew that to me, since it wasn’t mine, it might as well have been stacks of kid’s play money or stacks of old newspapers. He also knew that I wouldn’t feel cross or awkward about being in there alone, you know, me worrying that he was worrying- and just wishing that he had never put me in that position. Nope, there was none of that at all. It was all known, and unspoken.
A little while later, his CPA (a football friend) came in to drop off a couple of bank pouches and brown lunch bags full of cash from some pick-ups he had made. He did a double-take and said, “Wow, you’re only the fourth person to ever be allowed in here!” I offered him my chair, but he was on his way.
Now I didn’t write all this to say how trustworthy I am, or how much I trusted my friend to leave me alone in there with all that moolah.
I wrote this to ask you… can you guess what else was stored in that cash room under extreme lock-and-key, along with all those cigarettes?
THE CANDY BARS.