I found some money. Is it your money?

At about 4:15pm near Barrington and Santa Monica in West LA, I found some money on a sidewalk. If it's your money, I will be happy to return it to you. It's not much money, so don't tell me you were passing by on a trip from New York to San Diego when you dropped your wad of cash for your summer vacation--- because I won't believe you.

When I picked it up (no hints -- I'm not telling how much, or how little it is) I immediately looked around to see if there were any other pedestrians who might have dropped it out of a pocket. Nope. So I waited there for a minute and still no one came looking.

So I checked the Internet for the law about finding money. Here in California the finder has to make an attempt to find the rightful owner. I guess by stopping and looking around I made an attempt worthy of the amount on the ground.

If this were a lot of money I certainly would turn it into the police and hope for a reward if claimed -- or to get the money after 120 days if no one claims it. That's my understanding of the law here -- there's a 120 day "holding time" for found money.

This is not the biggest amount of money I ever found. I once found a $10 bill. Yes, today's "find" was less than ten bucks.

I guess I could include it in my next donation to a charity. So what do you do when you find some money? Yes, small change is included.

When I used to live in Miami some people put piles of pennies on sidewalks because of a superstition that if someone picks up the pennies they will also pick up the bad luck or problems that you have.

And then there are people who regularly walk through casinos hoping to find money on the floor or money left by slot machines, or "credits" left on the machines that they can cash out. By the way, the law in Nevada is that money found on the floor or left in the machines belongs to the casino.