Rabenstrange the Money Finder and the Adventure of the Well Stocked Pavement.

The Bible says that the love of money is not a good thing and that men cannot serve both their checkbook and their Creator. I think I have done a relatively good job in my life so far in keeping these priorities properly aligned. I tithe, give to missions and generally do my best to remember that I am a steward of God’s resources and not the outright owner of “my” possessions.

Maybe my experience at Six Flags was a reward for this. Probably not but it feels nice to think of it this way because at Six Flags I had some of the most bizarre monetary good fortune that I have ever had.

To be specific, I kept finding money. After climbing into the log for the “Get Soaked with Green Chlorinated Water After Waiting in the Hot Sun for an Hour” ride, I looked down and lo and behold their was a dollar bill floating in the bottom of the craft. Later on, I was walking between rides and looked down and their was a dollar bill lying in the middle of the pavement and it didn’t even have a string and practical joker attached. The second day at the Park, the Rabenstrange and Family Young Entrepreneurial Club, of which I am the founding member and President of Operations, Hit the concrete beaches of the water park ready to make some dough. We intended to enact a venture that had proven very profitable in the past, collecting abandoned rental tubes and returning them for the deposit. Unfortunately, Six Flags: Great America only gave a $1 deposit instead of the $2 dollar deposit offered at Silverwood, the park which we had previously used. Not only this, they instituted a system in which disposable wrist bands were given to those renting tubes and only people with the wrist bands were allowed to collect a deposit upon returning a tube. Upon discovering this we were a little discouraged as abandoned tubes were plentiful. However, not ones to be daunted by adversity we decided that we would allow capitalism and the free market to be used as our tools in pursuit of Federal Reserve Notes. We began discreetly approaching people who were going to pay the outrageous $8 per tube rental fee per tube and offering our tubes for a mere $3-5 according to our judgment as to the clients willingness to pay. This was quite profitable and in the hour that we were able to do it we made a total profit of exactly $30 dollars. This was rather less than the $64 dollars we made last summer at Silverwood but finding willing customers to sell tubes to was significantly more difficult than merely returning the tubes en masse to the booth. Finally, on the last day at Six Flags I was walking along and happened to glance down and there laying in the pavement just as had happened two days previously their was a bill. This time it was a $5. I was happy.