When a currently out-of-work schoolteacher in Texas came across a bag containing enough cash to buy a car, she did what some other wouldn’t even think of — she took it to the nearest bank and returned it.

She tells College Station, TX’s The Eagle that she’d just dropped her cat off at the vet when she spotted the bag lying in the left-turn lane.

“It looked like a gallon-size baggie with a blue zipper on top,” she recalls. “It just barely caught my eye, and I thought it was money, then was like, ‘Nah, it’s probably a dirty diaper.'”

But when she looked closer, she realized this was not some haphazardly discarded nappy. Inside, there were two bundles containing stacks of $100 bills.

“At first I thought it was drug money or somebody threw it,” she tells The Eagle. “I was kind of scared when I got it until I saw the Chase label on the bag.”

There was a Chase branch right down the street, so she figured she’d take it there as that seemed to be the most likely source of the wayward cash.

She arrived at the bank to find that it hadn’t yet opened for business. Rather than sit around and wait, she began knocking on the glass in an attempt to get someone’s attention.

“[The bank manager] thought I had been in an accident or somebody had mugged me,” she says. “I told her ‘I have y’all’s money. She said ‘What?’ and then she thought I was a crazy person. I told her to stay right there while I got it. She saw it and opened that door up as fast as she could.”

The manager asked the woman if she’d counted the cash, but the woman said she didn’t want to know.

“She told me I’m the most honest person in the world, and I said ‘or the dumbest.'”

The woman initially believed that the bag contained hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Chase later confirmed to The Eagle that the bag contained $20,000. For her efforts, the bank rewarded the woman with a $500 gift card.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.