THE DILEMMA

Chris was walking home from school when a man stopped him in his path. He said, “Here’s a thousand dollars. Use it to make other people happy.” He then walked away before Chris could reply. Chris looked down at the money. When he looked back up, the man had disappeared.
Now what to do? Should he turn the money over to the police in case the guy came looking for it? What if the money was stolen in the first place?
He stood on the sidewalk dumbfounded. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He stuffed the money into his pocket and continued to walk home.


When Chris entered his house he heard his mother calling from the kitchen. “Chris, is that you?”
“Yup, I’m home, Mom.”
“Would you like a snack?”
“No, thanks, Mom. I’m going to my room to get started on my homework.”
“Are you feeling all right, Chris?” His Mom crinkled her face into a concerned frown.
“I’m fine, Mom, just want to get it done so I don’t have to worry about it later.” He said and hurried off to his bedroom where he could think in peace.
It made him feel bad to lie to his mom, but how could he explain the money to her? He couldn’t. No one would believe what happened to him. He could barely believe it himself. He knew people would wonder how a twelve-year-old could come up with a thousand bucks.
He sat down on the bed to think, just as his older brother Peter walked into the room they shared.
“Hey, Pete, he said. What would you do if some stranger gave you a lot of money and told you to use it to make others happy?” Chris didn’t dare look towards his pocket filled with cash.
“That’s easy. I’d go out and buy myself something really nice. Why you asking?”
“Uh, It’s the topic of this paper we have to write about in school.” Chris darted his eyes towards his book bag. Peter grabbed his car keys and walked out of the room.
Chris thought about what he would buy if he spent the money on himself.
Boy, it would be great to get a new skateboard, and I’d always wanted an MP3 player. Oh, man, this money thing was a dilemma! He decided to sleep on the decision. Maybe an answer would appear in his dreams.


The next day Chris still wondered what to do with the money as he arrived at his baseball game that morning. When it was Chris’s turn to bat, he noticed an old guy on the opposite side of the fence. The guy looked through the parks garbage cans. His clothes were stained from head to toe and had holes in them the size of quarters. His face had grime in every crevice of his skin. His hair was gray and matted and in desperate need of a wash and comb. Just then Chris saw the old guy pick a half eaten sandwich out of the trash and eat it.
Yuck! Why would he eat that? Just then it dawned on Chris that this guy most be homeless.
But if he was homeless, why didn’t he eat at a homeless shelter, like the one down the road from his school. He remembered that his school made a big deal about donating can goods and stuff to the shelter around the holidays. He had even donated a few cans himself here and there. Eating at the shelter would be better than eating garbage!


“Strike one!” The ump hollered and brought Chris’s attention back to the game.
After Chris’s team had lost three to one, Chris packed up his gear when he noticed the homeless guy again. Now he was picking up empty soda cans.
Gosh, that was so sad. This poor man must be trying to earn a little money by recycling cans. He probably used the money to buy food. Chris walked over to the homeless man. As he got closer to him, he was overcome by the smell of mothballs and spoiled food. Before he could stop himself, his curiosity got the best of him.
“Don’t you get food at the shelter over on Mulberry Drive?” He asked. Chris couldn’t help but think the shelter was a better alternative. They’d have a place for the man to shower and freshen up.
“Yeah, sometimes I do, but most of the time they’ve met their food limit by the time I get there.” He added, while scratching his matted beard.
Chris noticed, when the man talked he was missing many of his teeth.
“What do you mean, food limit?” Chris asked the old guy.
“The shelter runs out of food a lot. They have a lot of us homeless people.” He moved his head back and forth.


As Chris watched him walk away, a thought came to him.
He remembered back when his dad had gotten laid off at work last year. Things were pretty rough, money wise around his house for quite awhile. He had even heard his mom and dad talking one night about the foreclosure letter that they received from the bank. The letter said they were going to evict his family from their home if they didn’t pay what they owed the bank. They had been lucky though cause his Dad had gotten a new job right after that letter came. His family had come pretty close to being homeless themselves.
Chris watched the homeless man making his way out of the park. He walked with his shoulders hunched over and a slight limp. Chris knew he wouldn’t want to eat a nasty old sandwich that had come out of the garbage. Just then he realized he knew just what to do with the money.


The next day, as Chris walked out of the homeless shelter on Mulberry Drive, he realized he felt proud of himself and his decision to donate the money to the shelter. He still didn’t know why the strange man had given him the money that day, but he somehow knew that the man would be proud of him too.