True Story #11: How to turn $20 into $4,500 in eight hours.

“What’s the matter?” I inquired.

“I am in trouble man.” lt;/span> He responded in-between mouthfuls.

“This afternoon I went swimming in a nearby lake with some people from class, and one of the girls thought it would be funny to throw my pants into the lake.  My wallet, along with all of my credit cards, my driver’s license, and all of my money fell out of the back pocket and sank to the bottom of the lake.”

“But You leave tomorrow.  What are you going to do?” I asked him.

“That is why I am here.” He admitted. “Can I borrow twenty dollars?  I promise I’ll pay you back tomorrow before I leave.”

“Well, I guess so,” I replied as I reached for my wallet. “But what are you going to do with it?”

“When I was young, my father taught me how to play poker, so I’m going gambling.”

“Good luck.” I replied.  “And don’t worry about paying back the twenty dollars.”

In his already drunken state, I didn’t think they would allow him in the door, let alone to gamble. With that he thanked me, left his empty bottle of beer on the coffee table, and staggered out toward the street. The rest of my night was spent hanging out and saying good-bye to all of the friends I had made during my last month and a half.

Our vocabulary was limited, and our conversation consisted mainly of a broken combination of English, French, and Spanish, but we stayed up all night sitting on the couch on the porch discussing everything from religion to politics to travelling.  Whenever we were hungry, we would sneak into the kitchen and raid the restaurant’s refrigerator, carving off small enough amounts of cheese, butter, and slices of bread so as not to alert the staff of the theft.  All too quickly the sun came up from nowhere and the time came for me to leave.

As we sat there enjoying the sunrise, the gate door to the property squeaked open and the outline of a man approached us from across the courtyard.  It was Brian, sober, smiling, and holding two fistfuls of cold, hard cash.  In eight hours he had turned my twenty dollar donation into over $4, 500!

“Here you go,” he replied as he thumbed through the hundreds, sifted through the fifties, and finally stopped when he reached the twenty dollar bills.

“Here is your twenty back.”

True Story.