Smells like cardboard.

As spring is approaching again, my mother is getting ready for Chinese New Year that takes place in February. Every year, she hands out red envelopes that hold money ranging from one dollar bills to twenty dollar bills.

This year, she decided to start early. She withdrew money from the bank months ahead and brought them home. She lies on her bed and throws them above her, grinning and laughing frantically as she rolls around, inhaling the aroma of the crisp green papers. She enjoys hearing the crunching of the papers as she crushes them in her fragile hands.

She would suddenly get up as if she had come to her senses. She sits up on her bed and begins to unwrinkle the money. Placing each bill gently on the plam of her left hand, she counts to make sure none was missing. I knew two of those twenty dollar bills would soon be in my hands, one from her, and one from my father.

She opens the closet door and sets the ironing board up in her room. She heats up the iron to level 3. She presses her fingers against a bill onto the board, keeping it flat as she irons it back into a crunchy bill. She does this to all of them.

They are warm, and smell like cardboard.

She no longer wants to play with them. They've been tamed.

She folds them in half, and delicately places them into the red envelopes. She closes the envelope and sets them in her drawer.

She doesn't touch them again.