Finger Fortune
When I was 16, I cut my finger off in a shop class accident at school. The table saws didn’t meet the minimum state safety standards, so my parents sued the high school. They settled out of court for a little over $25k, which after attorneys fees, left me with about $20k.
Being a minor, the money had to go in a joint account with my parents on the account. I took $1500 and bought my first pickup truck about a week after the settlement. Fast forward 2 months later and I’m checking the mail one day after school, and I see an envelope from the bank.
It’s addressed to my parents and myself, so I go ahead and open it…it’s an overdraft notice! I figure, this has got to be a mistake, so I get in my truck and drive down to the bank. Sure enough, my mother has spent every last dime of the money!
I go ahead and get a print out of all the transactions, and go home and wait on her to get home from work. As soon as she hits the door, I ask her for $1000 to go school clothes shopping, and she tells me that she doesn’t think I need to spend that much money on clothes, an that we could go together next week.
So I say cool, then let me have $100 or so so I can get some stuff for my truck. She starts getting aggetated and asks me why I’m in such a hurry to spend all my money (keep in mind, the only time I’ve touched it was to purchase the truck 2 months prior)?
At this point I can’t keep in in anymore, and I go and get the bank notice and the printout from the bank and I throw it in her face. Needless to say, the argument that insued was the legitimate end of my relationship with my mother, and the start of a really big strain on the relationship with my father.
Apparently my mother had been hiding a gambling addiction, and 90% of the money she stole from me went to that. She would go down to the local pub and write checks for cash to the bar and would sit there for hours feeding my finger money into the machines. Story credit: Reddit / truckdriva99