Miscalculation

One of my neighbours put their recycling bin out the other night (it wasn’t even recycling week) and it was filled up with those packaging fillers so items don’t get damaged, you know these things …

It was also a very windy night, they had over-filled the bin and surprise, surprise …. it blew over and most of those little things blew onto my front lawn.

Oh, yay.

So when I got home tonight, I found that Kim had brought the kids around to stay and having just walked past all these things on my front lawn, I had an inspiration and offered them 5 cents for each one they picked up.

Ten minutes later my lawn was all clean again and the count commenced …

I was expecting it to cost $4 or $5.

It cost $18.90 and I suspect from their rather exuberant dances of joy that I’d just been done over good and proper.

What really hurt though was that they wouldn’t take an IOU, and as I only had a $20 note, well they were OK with rounding up what I owed them to $20.

I used to have to cut and stack 10 tonnes of firewood when I was their age to earn $20 and it would take all day.

In fact thinking about it … $18.90 for ten minutes work, that’s way better money than I’m on.

Expensive miscalculation. Clever kids.  

I wonder if I could pass the bill onto my neighbour …