I found a wallet with cash in it three years ago and kept the money and have felt guilty about it ever since
This is small compared to a lot of things people confess here but it has stayed with me longer than I expected so here it is.
Three years ago I was walking home from a late shift and found a wallet on the ground near a bus stop. It was just sitting there on the pavement, slightly wet from earlier rain. I picked it up and looked inside. There was an ID, a couple of bank cards, a library card, and two hundred and forty dollars in cash.
I stood there for probably two minutes thinking about what to do. The ID had a name and a photo. I could have looked the person up. I could have handed it in to the nearest police station which was about a ten minute walk away. I could have left it at the bus stop information booth.
Instead I took the cash out, put it in my pocket, and dropped the wallet into a postbox so at least the cards and ID would make it somewhere useful. I told myself I was being practical. I told myself two hundred dollars was not life changing for most people. I told myself the cards could be cancelled.
I went home and bought groceries with part of it the next day and felt sick the entire time I was at the checkout.
The thing is I was not desperate. I was not in a situation where that money was the difference between eating and not eating. I was just tired and I made a selfish decision in about two minutes and then tried to soften it with the postbox thing like that balanced it out.
Whoever lost that wallet had to cancel their cards, get a new ID, and lost two hundred and forty dollars because I decided it was easier to keep walking. I think about that person sometimes and I genuinely hope it did not matter to them. But I have no way of knowing that and I knew when I took it that it might.
I am sorry. I should have walked to the station.