A Hundred and Twenty-Five Grand, Curbside

Before I knew what was in the envelope, I had already driven past the man who wanted to entrust me with it.

An encouraging start to our professional relationship.

It was a slow day in Colorado when the package delivery appeared. Around twenty dollars, an estimated forty-five minutes, and a decent amount of driving. Enough to make accepting it seem more productive than continuing to sit there, conducting unpaid research into whether the app was ever going to offer me anything.

I took it.

On the way, the sender messaged to say he would meet me at the curb.

The address turned out to be a storage facility beside a two-lane highway. A large one, with units big enough for boats, RVs, and vehicles. There wasn't much around it in either direction. Just the road, the storage facility, and an upcoming exchange that apparently did not require me to enter the premises.

I hadn't picked up a package from a storage facility before. I was still figuring out where I needed to be when I passed it.

The sender noticed.

He messaged to tell me I'd gone by him and reiterated that he wanted to meet on the side of the road.

Yes. Working on it.

I continued until I could find somewhere to turn around, then came back. Whatever else this man might have been expecting from his courier, he now knew I was capable of approaching the destination from both directions.

He was standing outside in a short-sleeve button-up and shorts. He looked like he'd been working, moving things, doing something physical around the storage area. His messages had given me the impression that he specifically wanted to keep the handoff out by the road.

Maybe that was simply convenient. I didn't know. I was there to collect a package, and the man with the package had selected a patch of highway as our meeting room.

He handed me a single business-size envelope.

Sealed. No name or address written on it. Nothing elaborate. After the drive and the turnaround and the unusually specific arrangements, the entire assignment fit in one hand.

He told me to take really good care of it.

There was an office inside the building at the destination, he explained. He gave me specific directions for finding the building entrance and then the office itself. He would tip extra if I walked the envelope directly up to the office door.

That sounded excellent.

People sometimes deliver additional instructions as though they're asking for an extraordinary favor, when the proposed arrangement is something like: please walk a short distance, and I will give you more money.

Absolutely. I had both legs available.

I put the envelope on the passenger seat and drove away.

---

The revelation waited until I arrived.

I parked at the office building and picked up the envelope. Something in its little window caught my eye.

Normally, that window shows an address. A name. Some useful information about where the paper is supposed to go.

This one showed a number.

$125,000.

And change.

I looked at it again.

It was the printed amount on a check.

Holy shit.

I had just driven a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars from the side of a highway to an office building, with all the ceremony of transporting somebody's forgotten lunch.

The envelope hadn't changed. It was exactly as thin and ordinary as it had been when the man handed it to me. But I was suddenly much more aware of holding it.

There are objects you can carry casually until someone tells you what they cost. Then your hands seem underqualified.

I hadn't opened anything. I hadn't gone looking. The amount was simply facing outward through the window, where an address might have reassured me that I was doing an ordinary errand.

Instead, I had received a financial disclosure.

And change. I liked that detail. Whatever the cents were, someone had calculated them carefully, printed the resulting six-figure obligation, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it to a man summoned by an app.

A man who had missed the entrance.

I understood the request to take good care of it a little better now.

Of course, a check isn't a bag of cash. It wasn't suddenly my money. But knowing that didn't make the arrangement feel any less extraordinary. I was the person responsible for getting this particular piece of paper into the correct hands, and I had accepted that responsibility while evaluating whether the trip was worth twenty bucks.

I was glad I dressed up a little for deliveries. Whatever the practical benefits of looking presentable, it felt appropriate that day. If somebody was going to send a small fortune with a stranger, at least the stranger had made an effort.

For all I knew, the shirt had done most of the interview.

---

I followed the directions into the building and found what appeared to be a contracting business.

Two women opened the office door and came toward me with an urgency that suggested the envelope was expected.

They asked whether it was from the sender, using his name.

I confirmed that it was. Special package delivery.

“Oh my gosh, thank you so much.”

They thanked me again, took the envelope, and hurried back into the office at something between a walk and a run.

Whatever business that check belonged to, my arrival had clearly been welcome.

I didn't know what it was paying for. I didn't know why it needed to come from a storage facility, or why the sender had arranged the handoff beside the road. The women seemed relieved, but I had no explanation for the urgency beyond the amount I'd seen through the window.

My understanding of the transaction was limited to its transportation requirements.

Man outside storage facility: had envelope.

Women inside office: needed envelope.

Me: successfully moved envelope.

There were probably contracts, invoices, deadlines, and entirely reasonable explanations connecting those points. None of them required my participation. I had been hired for the section involving a passenger seat.

I messaged the sender to confirm that the envelope had reached the intended recipients and that they were very thankful to receive it.

He thanked me and added another twenty-five dollars. By my recollection, the total ended up around fifty bucks.

That was a good delivery. Especially on a slow day.

It was also, as far as I knew, the highest-value package I had ever carried. There might have been other contenders. Package delivery provides surprisingly few opportunities to audit that sort of thing.

But this one had helpfully displayed its qualifications.

I went back to my car, where the passenger seat had resumed being a passenger seat.

For a little while, it had held a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

I had made about fifty.

We'd both had a better afternoon than expected.