I feel anxious looking at my wallet. The threads of the recycled rubber billfold are frayed. The little flap that holds the bills is thin and flat. Stashed in the slots are a book of stamps, an emergency card with my brothers name in California to contact in the event of my death with the signed instructions NO CPR NO THANKS NO MATTER WHAT and a card with the number 8 that a Buddhist friend gave me to carry to attract wealth. She said the cards were blessed by the Dalai Lama and that he suggested she give them out to others. Who could throw such a thing away just in case his blessings work? When I was a kid I begged my mother for a horse. I didn’t understand why the few dollar bills in her wallet couldn't be enough to buy one. I cried in the back of the closet and refused to leave it for half of a Saturday until she bought one. I knew from the screech summoning me to take out the garbage that the answer was a definitive no. Later in high school, I heard a horse was for sale at the state fairgrounds where I would go to watch the rich kids prance their horses around the coliseum. I prayed to Jesus and Mary on my knees for that horse and then a miracle happened. A classmate who owned a horse was admitted to a psychiatric hospital to get electroshock treatments and I cared for her horse while she was gone. On any given day I couldn't tell you how much money is in my wallet. Do I have one dollar or thirty? It's not enough to buy a horse. No one ever taught me the value of money. Many times I tiptoed into my mothers’ bedroom before school to take a few coins from her wallet while she was sleeping after working the late shift. I felt enormously guilty doing this. What if she couldn't buy food because of the quarters I stole to buy candy at school? Wouldn’t it be better to take the coins and give them to the missionary babies we adopted at church? Perhaps I was a kleptomaniac. What if this somehow would lead her to lose her job and she was sent to jail? Would we sell pencils on the street like they did in the Depression as my brother assured me would be our back-up plan? After my father died my mother started stealing silverware and ashtrays from restaurants. I myself stuff an occasional roll of toilet paper from work into my backpack when I need one. I never pass up a penny on the street. Have you heard that if you find money it means you will receive a windfall very soon? Once I found a twenty dollar bill on a Fung Wah Chinatown bus. Fung Wah means ‘magnificent wind’ in Chinese and soon after this I got a job that paid more than I have ever made— under the table, cash up front. My mother drove us six kids to Virginia Beach, Virginia once to meet with the famous psychic Edward Cayce. But once we got there she found out he had died 30 years before. Instead of meeting with the famed psychic she had a reading from a Gypsy woman on the boardwalk. Mom made us stay in the car and when she came back she told us the Gypsy told her she would marry a wealthy man in a uniform. The following year she killed herself. Did you know orphans receive a Social Security check of $450.83 a month until they turn eighteen? When I purchase items online I close my eyes and pray I have enough to cover it just before clicking buy. An astrologer once told me I will always have enough money when I need it. I keep about seven thousand dollars in gold coins in a safe made to look like a candle. Last time I checked, I owed $70,000 in graduate school loans. My mother never married a man in a uniform but when he was alive my father worked at the post office and wore a light blue shirt with the United States Postal Service insignia on the pocket.