When You Least Expect It

Friday

“Did you hear about Emerson? He found $20,000 in a bathroom stall at Panera Bread.”

“Didn’t he just get a $20,000 hiring bonus?”

“Practically a month apart.”

I’m catching up with my friend, Ricky, at a boutique café and patisserie in Beverly Hills. He proceeds to explain how Emerson took the money to the police, and if no one claims it in a week, he’ll get to keep it. But I’m only half-listening.

At the age of 44, I still haven’t won, inherited, or accidentally stumbled into $20,000. Which is quite uncommon. Especially at my age. Pretty much everyone I know has received twenty-grand by now. At least once.

When the bill arrives, I offer to split it, but Ricky won’t hear of it. Ricky and I once worked together as valets at Chateau Marmont. Then five years ago on New Year’s Eve, he received a $20,000 tip from Matthew McConaughey, because Matthew “dug his vibe.” Ricky took the money and gambled it all on crystal energy bracelets that he now sells from a designer van outside of Erewhon at double the cost.

Ricky does well for himself.

Before we part ways, Ricky asks me how I’m making money these days.

I tell him I’ve been doing simulated patient work at UCLA. I don’t tell him that I only make $20 an hour and that, earlier in the day, I was “presenting signs of severe rectal prolapse.”

We hug goodbye, and he throws me a green bracelet. Jade. Tells me it’ll attract money.

Then he says, “Hang in there. It’ll happen.”

Sure, sure.

Saturday

My friend, Shannon, and I meet for a walk at the park across from her apartment. She’s an artist in her late thirties, and she hasn’t received $20,000 yet either. We met while singing in a gospel choir in college, and I like Shannon, because she knows “de struggle I’s seen” and she knows “de sorrow.”

As I seethe at the unfairness of Emerson’s good fortune, she doesn’t minimize how I feel. She doesn’t offer me dime-store clichés like: Don’t look for it. You’ll win $20,000 when you least expect it. She just listens and holds a space for my emptiness. I extend the same courtesy when she confides she’s depressed about turning 40 next week. Like me, she really thought she’d have gotten twenty G’s by now. As we walk, she dejectedly scans the park for cats in the desperate hope of receiving a lavish reward for returning one to a neighbor.

I know that sinking feeling. A week before my 40th birthday, I pulled up the floor boards of my apartment on a hunch. All I found was dust and mouse pellets. The Universe might not always provide, but it definitely disappoints.

My heart goes out to Shannon. She’s one of my best friends. Would I trade her friendship for twenty-large? In a heartbeat. The beautiful thing about our relationship is that she knows that, and I know she’d do the same. We keep it real.

Still, I wish I could help somehow—throw her a $20,000 bone, you know? If only…

At night, I read a chapter from The Power of Dow that asserts there’s $20,000 inside each of us at all times. We just have to “invest in ourselves.” Tell that to my landlord when the rent is due, and I try to pay with imaginary inner money.

I open the drawer of my nightstand. It’s full of small, black Moleskines that I use as manifestation journals. I grab the most recent one and flip to the first blank page to try a new 55 x 5 manifestation technique I found on Instagram.

I write “I’m grateful for winning twenty-thousand smackers” 55 times. Then I put my journal away. One day down. Four more to go.

Before falling asleep, I Google “abundance crystals” from my iPhone.

Sunday

I call my mom, and we talk for an hour. You’d think The Universe would slip a smooth twenty-thou to a fella who phones his mom once a week, but not so much.

She hears the sadness in my voice, and she understands to a small degree. She didn’t get her $20,000 until she was twenty-nine, a little later than most. For a long time, we didn’t talk about it, because she and my dad are devout believers of the Written Check. Growing up, we had a bronze statue that hung in the foyer, an exact replica of Ed McMahon, his head raised to heaven and his arms stretched wide, bearing a giant check from American Family Publishers. A reminder, that Ed paid the ultimate price, so we might yet win.

When I was twenty, I came out to my folks—told them I was interested in computer transactions and preferred direct deposit. I was terrified. They said they still loved me then strongly advised me to keep it to myself. Months later, my mom called me when I was back at college and told me I broke my dad’s heart that night. I hung up the phone and sobbed.

Now, before our call ends, she makes me chant, “Show me the money!” with her from Jerry Maguire, and then she tells me that she and my dad pray every day that I’ll get a nice direct deposit for twenty-grand soon. My eyes well up. It’s not what I really want: it’s not twenty-thousand big ones, but they love me for me, and it’s something.

Later that night, while scrolling through Facebook, I see that my friend, Tobey, is out of the hospital. He dressed up as Scrooge McDuck for Halloween and suffered a neck injury from diving into a jacuzzi filled with two kilos worth of coins. I love Tobey, but seriously, he gets twenty-grand, and I don’t?

I mean, it’s not like I’m not putting myself out there. I’m on all the sweepstakes apps. Sweepstakes Lovers, Give-a-Way Frenzy, even Sweepr (though I refuse to send nudes). I’ve even won a little bit here and there. Small change. $2000. Nothing to write home about.

Emerson texts me: Did you hear the news?

I don’t text him back.

Monday

During my morning session, my therapist reminds me that the best way to receive is to be happy for others when they receive.

Ugh. Fine. I call Emerson to congratulate him.

“Hey, man. Another 20K. So wild.”

“I know! Can you believe it!?”

I can. He’s still waiting to see if anyone will claim it, but I doubt anyone will. His life is just that charmed.

Last year, Emerson held an investment ceremony after his third $20,000 windfall. After blowing through $40,000, he was finally ready to commit his money to a Roth IRA account.

I had just won $10 on a $5 California scratcher.

It was a big week for both of us.

After the ceremony, I stood in a cluster with all those “yet-to-receive” as Emerson prepared to throw a bouquet of origami one-dollar roses over his shoulder. Supposedly, whoever caught the bouquet would be next in line to get 20K. But I’d caught six bouquets by then, and I’d grown skeptical of the claim.

Not that I needed to worry. Emerson’s cousin, Lisa, sprang like a python and snagged it before the rest of us. Within weeks, a bus slammed into her 2005 Kia Sorento. A month later, guess who wheel-chaired out of the courthouse with a seventy-thousand-dollar settlement and a brand-new Chevrolet Volt. Not me.

I swear, some people have all the luck.

Tuesday

An hour ago, I was stretched out on a hospital bed at UCLA exhibiting symptoms of a simulated subdural hematoma as a doctor-in-training told me my prognosis was fatal. I wish.

I’m in the lobby now, waiting to collect my $40 payment. A kindly older woman turns to me and tells me her grand-daughter just won the grand prize in a bikini mud-wrestling contest. She beams with pride, then asks me how I got my first $20,000.

I get that assumption often.

On first glance, you’d never know I’ve never been the recipient of a lump sum payment of twenty-thousand simoleons. I’m conventionally handsome. Intelligent. Funny. And kind. Charitable, even. The kind of guy you’d think people would want to give money to.

Around 6 PM, I get a text from my dad: New singing competition show. $20,000 prize. Worth a shot? [Basketball emoji]

But we both know I don’t have any skills impressive enough for reality television. I can’t sing. Or bake fancy cakes. Or design clothes out of junkyard scraps. And Lord knows I’ve tried.

I text him that I’ll look into it (a lie), and then I ask him about grandpa who had a bad tumble in September, morbidly curious about the possibility of a sizeable inheritance on the horizon. Dad informs me that he’s better: 92 and as strong as an [ox emoji]

Figures.

Wednesday

I just finished writing “I’m grateful for winning twenty-thousand smackers” in my manifestation journal. 55 times a day for 5 days. I close the little, black notebook and return it to my nightstand.

I’m waiting for tonight’s winning lotto numbers to be posted.

On my left wrist, I’m wearing five different crystal abundance bracelets (thanks to Amazon Prime’s two-day delivery). I’ve also got a 528Hz “Receive Unexpected Money” frequency playing from YouTube, and for extra measure, I’ve anointed my lottery ticket with a dab of manifestation oil that I purchased from a mystic I follow on Twitter.

Tonight’s the night it happens. I can feel it.

I close my eyes to visualize what I would do if—no—when I win $20,000 in the lottery tonight. A lot of people blow through their twenty-grand quickly. They buy a pontoon or fritter it all away on tropical vacations. I’d be smart. Like Ricky. I plan to invest mine in real estate and flip it for a small fortune. I’ve waited a long time for twenty-grand, and maybe I’m old-fashioned, but when it comes, I want it to last a lifetime.

I get a notification that the numbers are in. It’s happening!

I scan the lotto ticket with my phone, and I see the message:

Sorry. This ticket is not a winner.

My ticket is eligible for the Second Chance drawing, but the prize for that is a pittance of $15,000. I don’t even bother.

I slide off the bracelets and toss them into the trash.

I always hope, and it’s the hoping that hurts the most.

I really believed tonight was the night.

I really needed it to be.

Thursday

A horrible thought occurred to me last night: What if I claimed the money?

The idea was clearly unethical (and possibly illegal), but also… seemingly fool-proof.

How would the cops know it isn’t mine? Plus, it’s not like Emerson needs another $20,000. And in a way, I’d just be balancing the cosmic scale.

By morning, I’d made up my mind.

Now, my car idles across the street from the police station, and I’m shaking. I can’t believe I’m about to do this. I get all the way to the door of the station, and then… I can’t. As desperate as I am for a double stack, I can’t get it like this. Fie upon my damnable conscience.

Back in my car, I get a text from Shannon. She’s received an unexpected $20,000 art grant from a mysterious benefactor. Days before her birthday.

And now it’s just me.

I feel the tears form as I look up at the orange, pink sky through my windshield, and then I think, Good for Shannon. She deserves it.

And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

I take one look back at the police station, and then I start up my car to head home, knowing that the hard choice is the right choice and certain that this is what it feels like to have twenty-grand inside.