Flashes of Panic

I’ve mentioned that when I see money lying on the ground—even pennies—I will stop to pick it up. I don’t usually need the cash, and as we’ll see, I’m not raking it in this way, but I see it more as a philosophy; it’s about not passing up opportunities or missing a chance.

A. thought this was amusing, so for quite a while if she saw change on her runs, she would pick it up and give it to me afterward. About this time last year, we both started putting our found money in a tin set aside for the purpose. This morning I poured out the tin and counted it: $24.71 in a year. It’s going in a savings account, which will also get next year’s haul a year from now, etc. I’m interested in seeing how much can be accumulated from nothing—and how long it takes. It would be entertaining if, a few decades from now, we could pay for some big-ticket item entirely from money we picked up on the street.

Folding money was a nice boost—there was a $5 and two $1 bills in the tin—but the single biggest line item, in value terms, was the sixty-four dimes. Pennies had the biggest bulk, of course: 431 of them, though like all the coins some of them are in pretty tough shape. (One even has a big chip missing; I’m not sure the bank will take it.)

$0.09 CDN (four pennies and a nickel) plus a Mexican ten-centavo coin represented the foreign haul. There was also a T token, which I “bought out” for $1.25, the current fare.

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