Small change

This is the bedside table - on His side - with a typical accumulation that always can be found there. 

Every evening on undressing he turns out his pockets onto this table.  Invariably there are some small tools and a bolt or a washer or two, and always there are a handful of dockets and a pocketful of coins that go into a small brass dish left there for the purpose.

I am the one who always disposes of the cough-drop wrappers, checks and discards the dockets, files away the receipts and business cards and returns the tools and hardware to their respective homes.

By the end of the week the change dish is overflowing.  Even without the 1 and 2 cent coins that have now been withdrawn from circulation.  I've never left it for longer than a week to find out what might happen if I don't take care of them; I always scoop them up and put them aside for use when needed.

I make a point of keeping down the small change in my purse.  When I have to pay $6.45 for something, I mostly hand over the exact amount.  Small businesses are always appreciative.  Occasionally I will pay the whole amount in silver - it helps them out and lightens my load.  If ever I am waiting at a train station and need a drink or quick snack I always off-load more of my change into one of those dispensing machines.  In fact I often have to buy a chocolate bar just to get rid of excess change.

Men seem to hate having to deal with coins.  My O.H. loads up with credit cards and banknotes each morning but leaves the small change behind.

I always think of my grandmother telling us, 'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.'  Well there are no pennies any more.  And no cents either.  Five cents doesn't buy much these days, so I guess they'll be the next to go.

Will I live to see the day when we are reduced to all paper money like some of those countries with high inflation? 

No more excuses to buy chocolate bars then.

Comments

[Tjilpi]

My Dad used to leave his spare change in the top drawer of a wardrobe so that we kids could regularly snitch just enough to buy a bar of chocolate; but no more. He knew it and we knew it; but nothing was ever said.

[elsewhere]

My father had his spare change lined up across the top of his lowboy. He had it in for 50 and 5 cent pieces, and tried to get rid of them as soon as possible.

I'm like you, Jude, a financial pedant, and try and give exact change at the local IGA etc as much as possible. But recently I've bought a new wallet that spews out coins once the zip-up compartment reaches a certain high water mark, so I've taken to throwing spare coins in my swimming bag for pool entry.

[pablo]

My mother-in-law would always throw her spare change into the bottom of her purse and disregard it altogether. One day, when she was here visiting, the kids got her to dump all of the accumulated coin onto the table. They counted it and rolled it and came up with some astounding amount: more than $100 in coin, which the kids got to keep! Grandma walked more lightly after that.

[Alice]

It's surprising how loose change mounts up. My son empties his pockets of change every night into a large tin and buys something for himself at the end of the year. He usually has about $1500 to spend from just one year's collection.

[Pat the Chooks]

Looks remarkably like my bedside table as well, right down to the Swiss Army knife, without which I would not be. The difference is that my knife is blue, being a replacement for a trusty old one that finally disappeared into the long grass in the garden a few weeks ago. I haven't got enough small change to leave it behind me every day, so it gets gathered up in the morning and back into the trousers for papers, parking, postage and the like. Men are habitual creatures, probably a mechanism evolved to allow for the fact that most of us can't walk into the next room and remember why we went there in the first place.