The Gross National Debt

Monday, June 8, 2020

Counting the various things - A Ma story.

Done something unusual past few evenings as I've sat in my recliner and watched animal documentaries.

I counted.

Most of you are saying "That's unusual?"

For me, it is. When I take cash deposits to the bank, I always add it several times. I frequently come up with different sums. I take the most common result and list that. I hand the cash over to Mindy, Connie, Roshunda, Jessi or Rosemary and try not to wince as they count it.

Half the time I'm right. Half the time, I'm not. Not kidding either. Ask the ladies next time you see 'em.

"It's simple math!" you exclaim. Anyone can do it.

Apparently not.

Yanno what is simple? Writing. Writing these posts, my newspaper column, the reports on various happenings in the community, research papers and more. Writing is simple.

"Yer crazy, Baker!" you exclaim.

Nooooope. If you can speak, you can write. The process is the same. In one case words fall out of your mouth. In the other, the crawl from your fingers. The same brain runs your mouth and hands. The same brain runs your language center.

Anyway, I counted. More specifically, I counted change. I then rolled that change into tubes and dropped each tube into a bag at my feet. I hope the count is right.

Mom collected money. Not as a serious investor, but as a hobby. A few silver dollars, half dollars regardless of the metal content and some silver dimes. One of those dimes I got in 1984 at the Moultrie Dairy Queen. I got my change and for reasons unknown, I looked over the coins and saw one was a Mercury dime. Gave that to Ma and she put it away with the rest.

She left behind God only knows how many pennies. She dropped pennies into my empty half-gallon whiskey bottles for years. Do you know how much a half gallon of pennies weighs? Too much, that's how much. Oy. Do you know how much it is worth? Not nearly enough to pay for the expense of picking the damned bottles up and trying to get the pennies back out.

Of more recent times, she collected commemorative quarters. She was always excited when I showed up with a quart can of change. She asked if I'd bring her the quarters from the office too. Every so often I did and she was excited again. I did not do it every week, although I could have. I don't think she ever bothered to think about how many quarters run the through the office each week.

Robin drops a stack of quarters at the bank every week from the many vending machines across the county. Not much from each machine, but they add up.

I did not take them each week because, well, Ma could not afford it. She worried about paying her vet bill for her two dogs every month, worried about the power bill and more. She paid for the quarters she got from the office and stuck most of them back. Money out of her pocket. My spare change, in the can, I just gave it to her.

I sat and helped her sort the money. Eagle quarters in one pile - didn't want them. Bicentennials in one pile. Commemoratives had to be sorted into quart bags and labeled. Old pennies went in one bag. New pennies, nah, to the bank with them.

It made her. very, very happy to sit there and do that. She was even happier that I helped, and that's why I did it.

Now, Ma is gone on to whatever comes next. Her coins, at least the common currency ones, they went to the bank. The money will go to help settle her estate. Shag and I agreed, the quarters will be worth 25¢ each for so many years to come. None of her grandkids are interested in coin collections. The very few other things she left, they are in a safe deposit box at the bank.

It's just money.

But the sorting, even now, that's not just money.

Oh how I want to walk back in her house again with a can of change and help her sort it out. Just one more time, please?

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