this morning, a reader (thanks cindy- you’re awesome!) left me a comment about how she found an amazing wad of dropped cash ($80+) at a garage sale. lucky! and then i rebounded with a story about how my friend found a $50 at arby’s (random!). and then in my head, i started writing a book of short stories about people finding money under different circumstances (i tend to get carried away like this a lot). in short, i want to hear your stories. big or small pennies or hundreds… it’s reader show and tell day!
here’s a little story from me to get it started:
after a full year of change collecting, i am starting to notice some odd patterns. i’m not particularly superstitious, or even inclined to believe in fate, but sometimes i feel like the universe is rewarding or punishing me via the nickels and dimes i find on the street.
a moment of rare self awareness… a shiny quarter might appear in an unexpected place (on top of the yellow line dividing the right half of congress street from the left at the exact place where i’m crossing the street).
a cranky grumpy selfish day… a fistful of pennies covered in green bugs. or more likely, no pennies at all.
about 3 years ago, i was getting ready to get married to someone that i knew i shouldn’t be marrying. and i was FREAKING OUT. i decided that the remedy for this was to get a tattoo (as it turns out, not the remedy- but that’s a whole other story). i wanted to assert my independence. give myself a permanent reminder of my autonomy- my past existence as single allie, and the life that i was feeling very much not ready to give up. i didn’t have the money, but it felt like necessity at the time, so out came the credit card. except that tattoo parlors aren’t like restaurants. there isn’t a tip section that pops out at the bottom of the receipt where you can just fill in the amount. you’re supposed to tip in cash, and i didn’t have any. none. my plan was to overdraw my checking account and deal with the consequences later, but on the way to my appointment, there it was. a crumpled twenty just hanging out in the middle of a vacant lot that i happened to be cutting through.
i think at the time i thought the universe was telling me “getting a tattoo is a good idea!”, although maybe “if you’re afraid to lose your autonomy, maybe you’re not ready to let it go yet!” would have been a better translation. but again, that story needs a blog of its own.
NOW YOU!
broke 207 