A little old lady was walking down the street, dragging two large plastic garbage bags behind her. One of the bags was ripped, and every now and then a crisp $20 bill slipped out and fluttered onto the sidewalk.
A police officer noticed and hurried over.
“Ma’am, there are twenty-dollar bills falling out of your bag.”
“Oh, really? Darn it!” the old woman exclaimed. “I’d better go back and see if I can find them. Thank you for telling me, officer.”
“Well, not so fast,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Where did all this money come from? You didn’t steal it, did you?”
“Oh no, no, nothing like that,” she replied quickly. “You see, my backyard is right next to the football stadium parking lot. On game days, a lot of fans get a little too comfortable and use a knot hole in my fence instead of a restroom—right over my flower garden. It used to make me furious. Ruined the plants, you know.
Then one day I thought, ‘Why not make the best of it?’ So now, on game days, I stand quietly behind the fence near that knot hole with my hedge clippers. Whenever some fellow gets careless and pokes through, I grab hold and say, ‘All right, buddy. Twenty dollars, or it gets trimmed.’”
The officer burst out laughing. “Well, that certainly sounds like justice in its own strange way. Good luck to you, ma’am. Oh, and what’s in the other bag?”
The little old lady gave a knowing smile and said, “Well… not everybody pays.”
