I figured the damage to be around $75.  Maybe $150, at most.  

I could tell my parents it was extra textbook money.  Had to buy a new A&P book.  They'd be so happy that I'd taken the initiative to take a college-level course in high school that they wouldn't hesitate to fork it over.  

It was this knowledge that blunted the edge off any guilt that might have lingered for knocking over the lamp post on front campus with the golf cart a friend and I "borrowed" from the landscaping shed.  Whatever the cost was, it was certainly worth the fun we had.

One thousand seventy nine dollars and forty eight cents.  

I almost fell to my knees.  What?  What kind of gold-plated lamp post was this?  The fee, I was told, was not even including the installation costs.   That number knocked that hot-air balloon right from the sky into a hissing, albeit colorful, mess that was my life.  

 And the most idiotic thing about it was that the first question out of my mouth was, "Are you going to tell my parents?"

What a fool I was.