2nd Deadly SIn

“ Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”

Erich Fromm

The 2nd Deadly Sin

After a long hard day at the movie theater, underpaid and overworked Reinar, enters through the front door of his humble home. His wife is leaving for work at the gas station in a hurry and she stubs her toe as she stumbles slightly on the steps while putting on her shoes. “ Holy crow!”

“Are you okay?” Reinar asks Annie, concerned.

“ Yes, I’m running late and now this! My car won't start. I had to call Tracy to come and pick me up. Can you look at it ?”

“ Yeah, first thing tomorrow, I am off work.”

She rushed out the door just in time as her friend was pulling up.

Reinar, takes off his shoes and rubs his face in exhaustion. He turned on the TV, and went into the kitchen to grab dinner. Reinar casually opened the cookie jar sitting on the counter. As he grabbed an oatmeal raisin cookie he felt something foreign in the jar as well. Shocked, he realized as he pulled his hand out that it was a $100 bill.

“Looks like I am ordering out!” Reinar pulls up Door Dash on his phone and orders a steak. Not giving the found extra money another thought he sat on the couch watching John Wick and waiting for his meal. 20 minutes later he was enjoying a delicious, juicy, medium steak. When John Wick Chapter 1 concludes, he tiredly slumped up the steps to get ready for bed.

In the morning, Reinar wakes early to fix his wife's car. Stumbling, sleepily he enters the garage and starts to find his tools and her keys. He turns the keys and the car doesn't start but it clicks like it is trying to . He pops the hood,

convinced he needs to change the battery. His wife finally comes home and he tells her,” I need to run to the store to get a battery. How was work?''

“ Horrible. Exhausting. We kept getting strange customers that wouldn't leave, then the toilet overflowed. My shoulder hurts from restocking.”

“ I'm sorry, there is tylenol and cookies.” he tells her as he gathers his keys to leave.

In the kitchen, she grabs a cookie from the jar and discovers a fresh 50 dollar bill as well. Confused, she pockets the cash and finds the tylenol for her shoulder. Then goes off bed but never falls asleep because she is thinking too much and becomes too involved in Law and Order.

As Reiner drives home, he stops for more cookies to help his wife feel better from her long night. He quietly fills the cookie jar to surprise and goes to work on her car. He detaches the old battery and replaces it with the new one but the rusty hood lock fails and whacks him on the top of his head. It hurts so bad he couldn't even make a sound. He slams the hood shut the rest of the way and stomps inside. Annie hears him and runs downstairs to see what happened. She sees Reinar holding his head and pacing. “ What happened?”

“ The hood hit my head, really hard.”

“Should I take you to the ER?”

“No, I'm fine. Why are you still awake?”

“ Couldn't fall asleep.” Reinar goes to the cookie jar to show her he bought her more cookies. He lifts the lid and finds $500.

“Did you put money in this jar?” he asks Annie.

“No, I thought you did . I found 50 when I came in. How much is that?”

“ It's 500 dollars.” he answers still in disbelief., “ I found 100 in it last night”

“ That's odd, but I'll take it!” she exclaimed.

“Car is all fixed. Do you want to pay off the rest of the car with that or go to dinner” he asked.

“ Well, $500 won't pay the rest of the car off but it will pay for the electric, and water for this month.” she explains

“ Ok. That sounds smart.'' he agrees.

The next day, the cookie jar only contains the cookies after they had hopefully checked it first thing in the morning for more money. They decided to leave the lid off. While making sunday pancakes, Reinar burns the tips of his fingers and the jar next to him slightly shakes. It would have gone unnoticed but Reinar caught it with the corner of his eye. He walks over to it and he sees a total of 30 dollars. He calls for Annie and frantically tells her about the money,” it just appeared!”

“Money doesn't just appear out of nowhere.”

“ Look at it. Remember we checked it this morning and it was just cookies.”

“ Interesting.”

Spending the rest of the day catching up on chores, they later took their new 30 dollars to lunch. On the way home, a middle aged man on his cell phone rear ended them causing them to swerve and then pull off to the side. Everyone gets out of their cars to exchange insurance and the middle aged man violently accuses them of breaking checking and causing the whole thing. Before they know it the man throws a wild punch and misses because Reinar dodges. Annie calls the police.

“ This isn't going to help. Just wait for the police.” and tries to deescalate the situation. The man does not back down and continues to yell, eventually hitting Reinar in the face breaking his nose as the police pull in. They jump out and arrest the angry man and start to call an ambulance for Reinar. Annie steps in and says,” That's expensive. I can take him to the ER on my own.”

“OK.” The cops agree and take everyone's statements.After the angry man is arrested and in the back of the squad car Annie drives a very bloody Reinar to the ER. The doctor resets his nose and prescribes pain meds so they are able to go home.

Reinar settles into the couch at home to watch John Wick 2 when his wife yelps from the kitchen. He runs to the kitchen exclaiming,” What happened?”

Shocked, she excitedly explains,” There is 2,500 dollars in the cookie jar!?” As she takes the money out of the jar she enthusiastically jumps and stumbles onto the floor slamming her knees onto the hardwood floor. Reinar goes to help her and slips and falls on his head. The cookie jar rumbled. They both stopped and stared as the money appeared in the jar.

Reinar, “ Did you just see that? Where did we get that cookie jar?”

“ My grandmother left it to me when she died. She was very wealthy, maybe that is why.”

“ So everytime we get hurt we get money?” He asked, confused.

“ Maybe.”

“Let's test it out.” Reinar suggests and proceeds to kick the corner of the wall with his shin. He went down in pain. The cookie jar rumbled again and money appeared.

“I guess you are right. I always wondered how my grandmother had money when she was always hurt.”

How much do you think we need? Just to buy a house, or something” Reinar asks.

“ I'm not sure. What kind of house? We need to pay off debt too.” she reminds him

“ An average house and I know we have debit. Let's sit and look over it all.”

“ What are you suggesting? We keep hurting ourselves just to get ahead." She is shocked.

“ Yeah, what's the difference when we are overworked and underpaid? We are desperate.” he pleads.

They sit at the table and pour over the bills, debit and budget of a new house. They concluded they need about $260,000. They begin to plan. Reinar goes to the store and buys pain meds and bandages.

“Are we really doing this?” Annie asks.

“Why not?” Reinar questioned.

Reinar hits his own toes with a hammer multiple times. The cookie jar shakes and $150,000 appears.

“That is not as much as I thought for all that pain” he says as he winces.. Annie has an idea.

“No, it should only be me that gets hurt.”

“No, I'm pulling them off!” Annie exclaims. She proceeds to take the pliers and pulls her finger nails off. Screaming in pain as the cookie jar fills.

Reiner rushes to her side to comfort her.

“Check the money!” she screams. The jar has $10,000. $1,000 for each nail. “Ok. I'll do the toes!” Another $10,000 appears. Reiner counts $35,000 dollars as his wife bandages her fingers and toes. Reiner stabs himself in his shoulder. The jar overflows with $30,000.

“ I can't believe you just did that!” Annie yells in shock.

“It's not enough!'' he grunts in pain.

“ We don't have to do this all at once!” she cries. She wraps him up and takes him to bed.

In the morning they are in pain but make phone calls to pay off their debit and take the day off of work. During breakfast they decided what they would pay for next. They were now debit free and wanted a new house and new cars because their current cars always needed work. Reinar goes to fix the loose shingles on the roof. He climbs the ladder with all his tools and since he was sore from the night before he slipped and fell when he reached the top. Falling hard, he dislocated his shoulder. Inside the jar shook as it filled up with money. Annie became excited and fell down the stairs breaking her hip. The jar rumbled again. Money poured out onto the table and then the floor. Neither Annie or Reiner can move. Reiner limps inside seeing Annie crawling towards the money.

“What happened?” he asked.

“ I fell down the steps when I heard the jar filling up. I tried to get the money.”

“ You mean the jar filled, which means I’m hurt, and you went for the money not me?” he questioned.

“Well, you walked in here didn’t you? So you can’t be that hurt. “ she reasons.

“ My shoulder is DISLOCATED!” he shouted.

“And my hip is broken. So either help me out or count the money.”

He leans against the wall and pops his shoulder back into place and the jar rumbles again as he cries out in pain. He goes to Annie and helps her up and carries her to the couch.

“How much money is there?”

“Is that all you care about?” He accuses as he stomps away to count the money. “650,000 is the total” he adds

“ Can we make it to a million you think?” Annie askes

“ You are lying there with a broken hip and you want more money?”

“Yes” She answered quickly, “ We have had it so hard and this is our chance!”

“ Well, I’m taking you to the hospital,” he demanded.

At the hospital, they were seen quickly and paid the bill in cash. At home they sit on the couch and watch John Wick 3. John Wick gives her an idea. Being stuck on the couch she reaches over and grabs a pencil while Reiner sleeps. She leans over and stabs him in the neck. He starts to convulse and bleed out. The money jar overflows onto the floor as he slowly bleeds out and dies. Annie instantly regrets everything. She goes to stand to check the money and her unstable legs give out and she slips in his blood and falls. The jar shakes. She hit her head cracking her skull. The room was quiet.