After exiting the vehicle and rounding the front right fender of the car, I noticed something spattered all over the ground in front of the car. My alarmed, first thought was "glass," since this is most commonly dispersed like confetti in a parking lot. Curiously, however, I noted that the spatters were pennies. There were a lot of them, and they were everywhere. This puzzled and annoyed me, but I stepped over them and continued with my shopping mission.
Later, when I returned to the vehicle, I stared at the pile. I cannot explain why, but I grabbed a garbage bag from the car and started scraping the pennies into a pile with my shoe. I'm sure the dude in the truck behind me was wondering what the heck I was doing. Once I had a pile, I picked them up, put them in my bag, and deposited them on the floor mat on the passenger's side of the car.
As I drove away, I thought, Who throws away money?! Yeah, they are pennies, and their worth is questionable, but money is money.
Anyone who has had to scrape pennies together to pay for a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk knows the value of a penny. Those who have had to do without, who have had to put something on layaway or save up for a purchase, and/or put something back know the value of a penny.
I have relayed this story to my students many times - how it was when Mike and I first were married. I was still in college, and Mike was working full-time. He was literally the bread winner, and I worked every other weekend at the nursing home to add to the emaciated "kitty." We survived on $50 for groceries - we bought a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread each week, and we survived on Totino's Pizza ($1 each at the time) and pot pies.
In 2025, we will hit the 35 year marriage milestone. These days, we buy groceries when we want, and we buy whatever we want, and that is an immense blessing. I am well-aware that not everyone has that luxury. Fortunately and currently, we don't have to count pennies to survive, but to quote yet another idiom, life circumstances can turn on a dime.
Humble beginnings are undoubtedly discouraging and challenging, but they are the best training ground for learning to manage money. When you have nothing, you learn to be creative with what you have (often playing the role of MacGyver), and you learn the value of "Is this a want or a need?"
That's why I cannot fathom the mentality of throwing away money - even if they are only pennies.
Economics aside, these pennies are a lesson in humanity as well. The act of throwing pennies away also gives me a little more about information about the values of the person throwing pennies on the ground.
When I plucked these pennies off the ground, they were all in tough shape. I don't know how long they had been in the parking lot, but they were severely oxidized, some almost unrecognizable.
After dumping them into an acid/salt combo (oddly, my homemade kombucha was the most effective), I started scrubbing and buffing the gunk off. Among the copper, I found a penny from the year Candace was born (1993), from the year Erika was born (1996), and the year my sister-in-law graduated high school (1984). In its own little way, each penny is anchored to a year, and each year is anchored to a memory. I already knew that music and scent can do that, but I guess money can too.
After a few minutes of soaking and scrubbing, many of the pennies were restored to almost new condition, bright and shiny; others were dull and even pitted. But all of them still had the same value. This is much like people too. Time, attitude, relationships and life experiences all effect each of us in different ways - some making us better versions of ourselves, and others leaving us battered, bruised and pitted. But in the end, a life is a life, and despite appearance or demeanor, each life has the same value as another.
Some people choose their company in life based on the value that someone else brings to the relationship. This attitude has always rubbed me the wrong way. It seems to infer that one person's value is superior to another's. What I've learned is if my life path crosses with another's, it happens for a reason. It is not coincidental. It is in my best interest to decipher the why and what I am supposed to learn from the experience. It is with humility that I admit that I have also learned that often, but not always, the people I least appreciate reflect behavior, characteristics, and attitudes that I, too, possess, which incites self-reflection. And that is where growth begins. Sadly, the hardest lessons in life are often the most painful and irritating.
All together, my parking lot plucking yielded $.85. This is another lesson. Paltry though the value is, a penny is still a penny. And when banded together with others, the collective value increases. None of us were meant to live this life alone. We value, as in, enjoy, life more and accomplish more in the collective.
No comments:
Post a Comment