Yesterday I was walking down Pine Street behind a woman who was hand-in-hand with an adorable child. The woman was on her cell phone and obviously in a hurry. The child was young—two? three?—and was hop-running to keep up with the woman in that adorable, clunky way children do when they haven’t yet figured out how knees work.

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Then the adorable child spotted five dollars on the sidewalk. I saw her spot five dollars on the sidewalk. She pointed and tried to say something to the woman, who gave her arm a tug and kept walking. The adorable child was still pointing at the money as I walked over and picked it up. We locked eyes. The child didn’t say anything. I put the money in my pocket. Later, I bought a latte.

Now, there is a chance the child was pointing at the cigarette butt lying next to the money, or some other cool trash nearby. But probably she was pointing at the money. The money that I took. From her, a child.

So, am I a monster?

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

66 replies on “Slog Poll: Am I a Monster?”

  5. I’m with #2. The mother was the monster here. What a horrible person.

    It’s not like you could have done anything different: even if you had given the $5 to the kid, that Nurse Ratched of a mother would have just taken it and spent it on something snobbish for herself.

  6. you Seattle folks are total assholes, that kid saw the money first…and it was spent on a fucking latte.., Seattle assholes, I’m disappointed…

  7. If you had offered the money to the child, the mother would probably think you were a monster, since she obviously was paying no attention and it would look like some random creepy stranger stopping her important business on the street so as to hand her kid some money. She would probably yell at you self-righteously, drag the kid off screaming, and a week later there would be an “I, Anonymous” entitled “Keep your dirty money away from my baby, you perv.” You were in the right.

  8. So here’s what you should have done – invest the money wisely in some amazing new technology, and let it accrue value, year after year, until it is worth millions.

    Then track the kid down and wave your investment statement under her nose, laugh maniacally, and then walk away, leaving her sobbing, knowing that her mother cheated her out of the life she could only have dreamed of.

    Feel good about that latte now?

  9. You are absolutely a monster, and I love you for it. I await with bated breath the day when you are in charge of a child and are towing it along the street, too fast and too determined for the kid to snatch something precious from the sidewalk. It sounds like I’m a dick, but really it’s beautiful in an Animal Planet, circle of life sort of way, and if you are judging me right now then I hope you are the one to smash the dreams of the kid that Cienna drags around town in my imaginary scenario.

  13. That child will remember you forever and probably end up being a highway robber. Survival of the fittest, to the victor go the spoils, etc. You may have singlehandedly caused the zombie apocalypse.

    I am of the opinion that lattes are worth it. So no, you are not a monster. It was for the greater good.

  14. That child will remember you forever and probably end up being a highway robber. Survival of the fittest, to the victor go the spoils, etc. You may have singlehandedly caused the zombie apocalypse.

    I am of the opinion that lattes are worth it. So no, you are not a monster. It was for the greater good.

  15. Kid woulda just put it in its mouth anyway. That’s what a kid that age does with anything they pick up, whether it’s a $5 bill or dogshit.

  16. I’m with #10. Moreover, the kid moved on from the moment immediately. You, however, are cursed with self-awareness and moral perspicacity. Suck sometimes to be a grown up.

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