I THOUGHT SOMEONE WAS LEAVING A TICKET ON MY CAR—BUT IT WAS A $50 UNEXPECTED FIND
It Had Already Been One of Those Days
You know the kind: late for work, coffee spilled down my shirt, my toddler sobbing in the backseat because I’d grabbed the wrong granola bar. And to top it off, the bumper.
That stupid, half-dangling bumper I’d been pretending didn’t exist for weeks. It flapped with every turn, and yet I kept hoping no one noticed.
Spoiler: everyone noticed.
So when I spotted a folded piece of paper tucked under my windshield wiper in the grocery store parking lot, I groaned.
“Great,” I muttered. “A ticket. Just what I needed.”
But when I unfolded it, I didn’t see a citation or one of those neighborly complaints about being a visual nuisance.
Instead, I found a $50 bill.
And a handwritten message:
“I saw your car’s missing bumper. Maybe this helps a little.
– Someone trying to make the world better this year.”
I stood there, frozen, blinking stupidly as shoppers passed by, going about their lives.
In the backseat, my toddler piped up, “Mommy? Are you crying happy tears?”
Yes. Yes, I was.
I brought the note home and tucked it in the junk drawer. I didn’t want to lose it—proof that kindness existed, even in the middle of a week that had been relentlessly hard.
But this is where it got… weird.
The next morning, I went to show it to my sister—and found another note. Different handwriting. Same message. Another $50.
At first, I assumed someone in the family was playing an elaborate joke. But my sister swore she hadn’t touched a thing. My husband looked just as baffled as I felt.
The new note hadn’t been on my car.
It had been inside my house.
Which meant whoever was doing this knew more than they should.
I tried to brush it off. Ignore it. Maybe it would stop.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
Two days later, at work, I found a third note taped to the corner of my desk. Another $50 attached.
This time, the message read:
“Sometimes people need reminders.
Most people do.”
It hit differently. It felt personal. Not creepy, exactly—but haunting in its quiet knowing.
As if someone out there could see the exact weight I’d been carrying. And decided I shouldn’t have to carry it alone.