Our toilet tank was filling really slowly. I asked my husband to check it. He promised he would, but days passed and nothing changed
I said I’d fix it myself, but he said, “Better not mess with it—it’s barely holding together as it is.”
I suggested calling a plumber. His face changed, and he quickly refused, insisting he’d handle it.
But another week passed and the problem was still there. At that point, it started to feel suspicious.
So one day while he was at work, I carefully took the lid off the toilet tank and was left absolutely speechless because inside there was a Ziploc bag full of cash. Not just a few twenties. This was thick, stacked with hundreds—at least $10,000.
I stood there for a full minute, just staring at it. My hands were shaking when I pulled it out. It was sealed tight, double-bagged even, and dry as a bone. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Why on earth was my husband hiding that much money in the toilet tank?
That night, I didn’t say anything right away. I wanted to see what he’d do. So I put the lid back on like I never touched it. But I couldn’t sleep. My mind went to weird places—was he involved in something illegal? Was he hiding money from me? From someone else?
The next morning, I casually said, “You sure you don’t want me to call a plumber? It’s still slow.”
He barely looked up from his coffee. “Nope. I’ve got a guy coming soon.”
A guy? That was new.
I tried not to let it show, but I was spiraling inside. The man I married—Marlon—was always frugal, yes, but secretive? Never. We’d been through thick and thin together. And now there was this… hidden stash?
Later that day, I called my sister, Danika. She’s a sharp one—way more cynical than me.
I told her everything, and she didn’t hesitate. “You have to confront him. That’s not normal, Linds.”
So that evening, I did.
I sat him down, and I told him I found the bag. His eyes darted to the bathroom like I’d just threatened his life.
“Why didn’t you just leave it alone?” he muttered.
That hit hard. I wasn’t expecting guilt, but I wasn’t expecting anger, either.
After a long silence, he sighed. “It’s not what you think.”
He rubbed his face, looked exhausted all of a sudden.
“I’ve been working extra construction jobs under the table. Night shifts. Weekends. I’ve been hiding the cash because I didn’t want you to know.”
I blinked. “Why?”
Because I didn’t want to fail you again,” he said. “After we had to sell the truck, after we missed that mortgage payment last year… I just wanted to fix something on my own without making it worse.”
It took me a minute to process that.
Turns out, he’d been driving out to an old friend’s company in Westdale twice a week after hours, doing demolition cleanup for cash. He was saving to surprise me with a new car—my old one had died last winter and we’d been sharing his since then.
“I was gonna give it to you on our anniversary,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t want to say anything until I had enough.”
And just like that, my heart broke a little.
Not out of anger—but love. Because the truth wasn’t some dark secret. It was just a man trying his best to do something good, even if the method was a little sketchy.
We laughed—eventually—about how ridiculous it was to store it in a toilet. He admitted he got the idea from some Reddit post. “Who checks the tank?” he’d said. “Turns out, you do.“
After that talk, things changed. He stopped hiding stuff, and I stopped assuming the worst.
We pooled the money together, put it in a proper savings account, and yeah—we eventually got that car. A secondhand teal Subaru I still drive proudly.
But more than that, we started being partners again. Not just co-pilots. Real teammates.
Moral of the story? Sometimes, things that look shady are just love in clumsy disguise.
Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions, and don’t assume the worst before you know the whole story.
And maybe check your toilet tanks once in a while. You never know what you might find. 😉
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