I'll be cool and piss it all away

Before our run for cross country practice each afternoon, my high school friends and I liked to each take a yard stick and do a lap in the halls, stopping to poke under each vending machine and collect change. We'd also save whatever we came across on our runs, and stash it in a paper cup on the top shelf in our coach's classroom.

By the final track meet that year, we had amassed thirty-something dollars, which we blew at the dollar store on bouncy balls, Mike & Ike's, and other good dollar store stuff. (I'm pretty sure we bought a laundry basket too, but now I can't remember why.)


The hubs and I took on a similar endeavor during the year we lived on Capitol Hill, in Seattle. I rode the bus everywhere, and we both walked downtown a few times a week and found coins just about every time we left the apartment. We started keeping everything we found in a jar, just for the fun of seeing how it would add up.

Each day when we'd get home, the hubs and I would compare our daily total. I had an edge on my commute, as I walked lots of high-traffic sidewalks to get to my bus routes. And he had the advantage during the day, as he trolled the halls of the high school where he taught.

Twice he found dollar bills on the roadside while riding his motorcycle to work, and pulled over to snag them. (I was never that lucky.)


When we came across furniture in the dumpster of our building, we'd tug it onto the elevator and up into our little studio, where it would sit in the bathroom until I got it sold on Craigslist. That cash went in the jar too, because we reasoned it also counted as "found money."


At Value Village last week, I scored a big bag of Cointainer rolls, and when I got home we set about rolling the change we'd found during our year in what is surely Seattle's coolest neighborhood (sorry Ballard).

Grand total...

(is it tacky to say?) ...

(oh, well, I am tacky, so I may as well embrace it)...

$202.

Yeah, buddy.

We want to do something cool with it, and are debating our options. I want something tangible that I can always look at and think of our coining adventures in the Emerald City. Something longer lasting than bouncy balls and Mike & Ike's.

Suggestions?

Love, J

PS ~ I later learned at the bank that we are not supposed to roll our coins anymore. They have one of the machines that count it up for you. And if you do roll your coins, then the teller will sigh loudly as you stand at her counter while she slowly and dramatically unrolls them. But she still has to give you the cash.