If the sight of $1,060 shredded up into little ribbons makes your heart sink, you’re not alone.

We hope we never have to feel the way Jackee and Ben Belnap did when they found the money they had saved and stashed away in an envelope had gone missing.

But we know it probably wasn’t as bad as the feeling they had when they found it.

Ben’s parents had lent the couple a little over $1000 to pay for season tickets to the University of Utah football games in 2018. It’s a good thing the team led their division in the Pac-12 South that year, going 11-3, otherwise, the whole situation would have been even more frightful.

According to KSL in Utah, the Belnaps wanted to pay Ben’s parents back in cash, so they stored it in a little white envelope and waited for the right time to hand it over. But when the time came, the envelope was gone.

We can all imagine what follows next – frantic searches, questioning your own sanity, wondering if there was a break-in…

But Jackee eventually came to terms with the possibility of a whole new nightmare scenario.

Their son Leo was a huge fan of their home paper shredder. He often delighted in helping his mom shred mail. But could he really have gone snooping through the house looking for things to shred and come across the cash? And would he really shred money? Could they have possibly missed the sound of their two-year-old shredding over $1000?

Yep.

And when she went to open the receptacle, she found not only the mutilated money but a whole bunch of paper mixed in as well.

It was going to have to be painstakingly separated.

We don’t know how long it took to overcome the shock but, eventually, they managed to find the humor in the situation.

Anyone who has dealt with a 2-year-old knows that blaming or punishing them only goes so far. And it certainly doesn’t bring back the cash.

“We just, for like five minutes, we just shuffled through it, not talking. We didn’t know what to do and then I broke the silence and I’m like, ‘Well, this will make a great wedding story one day,’” Jackee told KSL News.

After an undisclosed number of deep breaths, Ben Belknap took to Twitter with a set of photos that made people cringe.

“Siri, find a boarding school,” said one commenter.

Those who didn’t find the story to be excellent birth control vowed never to have both a child AND a shredder.

Of course, partially destroyed money can be made good again. The U.S. Department of the Treasury redeems more than $30 million in “mutilated currency” every year. That’s money that has been damaged beyond repair and to the point of having its security features compromised.

The Treasury was, of course, willing to help the couple. But they’d have to file a claim and wait.

“I called the guy the next morning and he said, ‘Oh, we might be able to help you here,’ and I was shocked,” Ben told KSL News. “He said, ‘Bag it up in little Ziploc bags, mail it to D.C., and in one to two years, you’ll get your money back.’”

That’s right, it takes months, if not years, to verify that the currency was authentic, judge the value of what was sent along, and issue the money back to the owners.

The payback for the tickets will have to wait, but it looks like the family won’t harbor any bad feelings towards the team when they’re reminded of what happened. The school reached out to the couple and offered them some free tickets – provided they could find a babysitter for Leo.

Even Budweiser beer got in on the generous offers.

It’s been about a year and a half since the incident, but we don’t know if the couple is any closer to getting that money back.

Be sure to scroll down below to see an interview with the Belnaps about the ordeal.

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Source: TIME, KSL.com, CBS Miami via YouTube, U.S. Department of the Treasury