The Pile Of Coins On My Desk: April 5, 2013
by William Foster

9:15 a.m.: A yellow legal pad lies on my desk to the left of my laptop. Its top two sheets are curled under the cardboard backing, and the exposed third sheet bears a crude diagram in black ink. Unused and unmoved for nearly a year, the pad collects coffee drops and dust, and serves as a repository for my pocket change. At this moment, the pad underlies two dimes and one nickel, arranged arbitrarily.
12:20 p.m.: This salad and twelve-ounce container of mushroom barley soup cost $9.95 at the company cafeteria. I’m pleased to have assembled, albeit unwittingly, a meal with a monetary value divisible by 0.05, and consequently kept my day penny-free. After returning to my desk with the food, I reached into my left jacket pocket to retrieve my change. There, in addition to the lunch nickel, I found forty cents from my morning coffee transaction, and in the other pocket, three quarters of forgotten provenance. I set them all on the legal pad, bringing the aggregate to four quarters, three nickels, and three dimes.
12:35 p.m.: In a fit of whimsy, I organized the coins into three stacks, one for each denomination.
1:55 p.m.: The barista refilled my mug in exchange for fifty cents, diminishing the quarter stack by fifty percent to two high.
2:35 p.m.: For months I had an afternoon habit of trading a portion of the coin pile, when its value was sufficient, for vending machine sweets. It’s rare that the pile attains a sum equivalent to the cost of one snack, as it has today, and I’m tempted to buy a bag of Welch’s Fruit Snacks for that reason alone, to watch it zero out. However, I recently resolved to reduce my sugar intake, and thus the day’s coin pile activity comes to a close.
4:10 p.m.: In the wake of an unanticipated second coffee refill, the coin inventory stands at one quarter, two nickels, and one dime.
11:43 p.m.: The coins nervously wonder, “When will our master return?”
William Foster lives in Portland, Ore. Photo: Jason Rogers
Support The Billfold
The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.
Comments