In the United States, people often say you should keep the first dollar you ever make. Why is that? Is it supposed to be good luck? Some half-forgotten superstition? Often when I go into a restaurant or diner or some little Mom and Pop store, there up on the wall, over the cash register or the grill or just somewhere it can be seen and heard and felt, is that single battered dollar bill, faded from ten-fifteen-twenty years of sunlight and cigarette smoke and nervous hope. Why? I don't know what's happened to the first dollar I ever made. I probably spent it on candy. So what drives some people to hold on to theirs like it's the last kiss from the lover they never thought they'd let go? I have no idea.