Baby's first fifty
In the mid 1990s my sister was a little girl aged eight or so, and she was given a $50 bill for some reason (a birthday gift or something, I no longer remember.) That was a huge deal for her, I don't think she'd ever had so much money before in her life, and it was agreed she should really give some thought to how to spend it. In the meantime she needed somewhere safe and special to put it away, so I recommended she put it in a book.

A few days later I was going to the library, so I took it upon myself to return the family's due library books. I'll give you three guesses as to how this all ended badly.

I took responsibility and scrounged up a replacement fifty for her ASAP, but that Sad Baby Sister Face^TM is forever etched upon my memory.
( Rob T Firefly talked, like, William Shatner, on, Mon 20 Jun 2011, 1:59, 1 reply)

On the other hand
Some random library-user got an unexpected windfall, which probably spread a little joy and happiness in the world.

Not much of a consolation for her at the time, of course...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 20 Jun 2011, 9:29, closed)