09.27.10

Monday Dare: You’re worthless, but I still value you.

Every Monday, I’m picking from the List of Things to Try, Places to Go, Possible Acts that Help and Possible Fun to Have. It’s a list I made before The Project started and I’m still adding to it. If you have suggestions, please, feel free to throw them my way. I’m calling the list my Monday Dares, as I get overwhelmed just looking at the words “challenge” or “goal.”

This week: I will use my pennies.

We have a family secret. Every time my mind grazes over this one fact, I shudder a little. When I found out, I turned away in disgust. But, the compassionate side of me understood and we’ve worked through it.  He’s promised never to do it again.

My husband, Harv, threw away a jar of pennies.

In his defense, he worked 90-hour weeks at the time and he needed to pack an apartment-full of bachelor glory in just a few hours. He haphazardly threw some of it (his bachelorness, not the pennies) into cardboard boxes and the rest (deemed unworthy, unneeded or too weirdly shaped) found a new home in the garbage bin.

He claims that pennies are worthless.

Okay, I give him that. Sort of. If you manage to save them and not throw them away, you only have to collect 10,000 to equal a hundred dollar bill. I guess I do have a spare bathtub I could use as a penny collector.

I don’t use pennies because I’m a coward. Is it just me, or do cashiers really sneer when you start pulling pennies out of your wallet? This uppity attitude is unfortunate- if I don’t give the cashier my pennies during a cash transaction, he will probably be forced to give me some of his pennies. Should I sneer? How about just a soft hiss?

Damned be the dirty looks! I will use my pennies!

photo: Simon Howden

September 27, 2010
09.27.10

the dark side

I stole a coupon this week.
I’m not going to lie- I was amazing. So smooth, so stealth, you’d think I pilfered regularly. I yearned to brag about my prize, but decided against it. I have to draw the decency line somewhere and my line happens between stealing a coupon and actually telling people about it over cocktails….so I’m doing it here.
I practice a respectable level of laziness, which is why I refuse to get on my hands and knees with rags to clean my stone floor every time we spill something. I like shortcuts. The best shortcut is not doing it myself, but 10-year-old Cal insists on going to school Monday through Friday, and I just don’t have the heart to add floor duty to her list of chores (she did a stellar job of preparing my taxes this year) .
I researched hard surface floor cleaners. Each one presented a new shortcoming-too heavy, too weak, too unstable, too complicated and one was just too ugly. I like to clean a spill in style. After a week of back and forth, I finally threw my hands up and decided, “Forget this. I am too cool for emotional upheaval over a floor cleaner. I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. I’m a worthy human being.” Thank you, Stuart Smalley.
You really don’t realize how much you love need someone something until it’s gone….like a Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon. Yes, it was my own purely preventable fault that after eight years of throwing away their mailings, Bed, Bath & Beyond got tired of me, Mrs. Ungrateful, and decided to stop wasting a coupon and postage on me. Oh, Hindsight, you unforgiving, malevolent devil.
So, I stole one.
At the eye doctor’s office.
From an interior design magazine.
It took me almost three minutes to tear it out, carefully and soundlessly, so the receptionist wouldn’t catch on.
Don’t judge me. You can judge me all you want. I’ll be too busy rolling around in the thirty dollars I saved. I had the bank change it into pennies. It doesn’t feel very comfortable, but it sure feels satisfying.

September 27, 2010