A 2-year-old shredded $1,060 of his family’s cash. His mom cried, until she laughed

By Meagan Flynn, The Washington Post, Fri., Oct. 5, 2018, https://www.thestar.com/news/w...til-she-laughed.html

There are the toddlers who throw tantrums in the grocery store and flush watches down the toilet. There are others who colour with permanent marker all over the wall or decide a sibling, or a pet, needs a haircut.

Then, there are the 2-year-olds who know how to work a paper shredder.

In this composite photo, two-year-old Leo Belnap (left) is seen posing with his bicycle. Belnap was helping his mother shred documents when he accidentally shredded an envelope containing $1,060 in cash (right). (@Benbelnap twitter account)

Leo Belnap is one such 2-year-old.

On Sunday, his parents, Ben and Jackee Belnap, from the Salt Lake City area, noticed an important envelope containing $1,060 had gone mysteriously missing, as they told KSL.

For the past year, the diehard University of Utah football fans had been saving up the money to pay back Ben’s parents for season tickets, they said.

They started tearing the house apart to search for the cash — under the rugs, in the drawers, in the couch, even in the garbage, News4Utah reported.

“I’m digging through the trash,” Ben Belnap told KSL, “and [Jackee] hollers and says, ‘I found it.’”

It was in the shredder. In a thousand tiny pieces.

Immediately, Jackee Belnap said, they knew Leo was the culprit. He had been helping her shred junk mail and documents, she told KSL Apparently, he thought he was being helpful this time, too.

First, Belnap cried, she said — just for a minute. Then, they laughed.

“As devastated and as sick as we were,” she told News4Utah, “this was one of those moments where you just have to laugh.”

Hope, and perhaps the money, may not lost for the couple.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing offers a solution in the event that a toddler destroys hundreds of dollars by accident. In fact, the bureau has an entire “Mutilated Currency Division,” which is devoted to “redeeming” burned, waterlogged, chemically altered, rodent-chewed or deteriorated money — a free service to the public. It handles approximately 30,000 claims per year, redeeming more than $30 million in mutilated cash, according to its website.

The currency “must be forwarded to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for examination by trained experts before any redemption is made,” the website says.

This is the route the couple hopes to take. Ben Belnap told KSL they contacted the Treasury Department with questions, and were told to send the remains of the money Washington in Ziploc Baggies.

On Twitter, Ben snapped a picture of the couple’s meticulous efforts separating the currency from the other shredded pieces of junk mail, so that they could send it to the government. And in six months to three years, they may get it back.

In the meantime, Leo will not be using the shredder anymore. The silver lining: “Well, this will make a great wedding story one day,” Jackee Belnap told KSL.

2:40 PM - Oct 2, 2018

BB @Benbelnap

So me and my wife had been saving up to pay for our @Utah_Football tickets in cash. We pulled our money out yesterday to pay my mom for the season... Well we couldn’t find the envelope until my wife checked the shredder. Yup. 2 year old shredded $1,060.

2:40 PM - Oct 2, 2018

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