Finding A Dime, And The Resulting Thoughts
I found a dime earlier today in a parking lot. The dime was scratched and scuffed up. It had been out there a while. Since it was still worth ten cents, I tucked it into my pocket.
When I was a little girl, walking down the street, I would gleefully pick up a penny that someone had unknowingly dropped onto the sidewalk. I remember finding a nickel on the blacktop of my elementary school playground. I was about 10 years old and the find was significant enough that over fifteen years later I still vividly remember it.
I have a friend who is truly poor. She will pick up a lost penny each time one appears. I haven’t picked up a penny in ten years. Part of that has to do with my improved financial state adulthood as brought me, but I think a lot of that has to do with the dwindling value of a penny. I will still pick-up a nickel, but it is very close call. If I’m walking down the street and I get a glimpse of an abandoned nickel as I’m passing by, I will not halt my stride and return to the site of the coin. I’ll just keep walking. If I’m standing at an intersection, waiting to cross the street, and I look down and see a nickel at my feet, I’ll reach down and retrieve it, assuming I have not been shopping and have nothing in my arms hindering my downward bend. To me, the displaced nickel is right on the cusp of going the way of the displaced penny.
A few days ago I was about to put some money in a vending machine when a quarter slipped out of my hand, hit my foot, and was catapulted into the darkness under the vending machine. Five years ago I would have gone to my hands and knees, looking for the quarter. Nowadays I give a brief look, shrug my shoulders, and chalk up the quarter as a loss, the cost of doing vending machine business.
Speaking of vending machines; I’m sure billionaire Bill Gates uses them occasionally. I have wondered what he does when he gets change from one. Does he reach down into the coin return and retrieve his forty cents? Figuring that Gates was worth $0 at birth, I wonder what his lifelong per second income is. If I were good at math I would be able to figure it out. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill Gates is worth something like $5.00 for every second he has been alive. Mathematically speaking, I’m sure Gates takes a financial loss whenever he bothers to fetch money from a vending machine coin return. So, does he bother?
This morning, when I found the dime, I picked it up and for a few seconds thought of myself as having a bit of luck, ten cents worth of luck, to be exact. Then I began wondering how long it will be before a disowned dime will no longer be worthy of my rescue efforts. Probably not long, unfortunately. It seems that even luck can have a rate of inflation.
When I was a little girl, walking down the street, I would gleefully pick up a penny that someone had unknowingly dropped onto the sidewalk. I remember finding a nickel on the blacktop of my elementary school playground. I was about 10 years old and the find was significant enough that over fifteen years later I still vividly remember it.
I have a friend who is truly poor. She will pick up a lost penny each time one appears. I haven’t picked up a penny in ten years. Part of that has to do with my improved financial state adulthood as brought me, but I think a lot of that has to do with the dwindling value of a penny. I will still pick-up a nickel, but it is very close call. If I’m walking down the street and I get a glimpse of an abandoned nickel as I’m passing by, I will not halt my stride and return to the site of the coin. I’ll just keep walking. If I’m standing at an intersection, waiting to cross the street, and I look down and see a nickel at my feet, I’ll reach down and retrieve it, assuming I have not been shopping and have nothing in my arms hindering my downward bend. To me, the displaced nickel is right on the cusp of going the way of the displaced penny.
A few days ago I was about to put some money in a vending machine when a quarter slipped out of my hand, hit my foot, and was catapulted into the darkness under the vending machine. Five years ago I would have gone to my hands and knees, looking for the quarter. Nowadays I give a brief look, shrug my shoulders, and chalk up the quarter as a loss, the cost of doing vending machine business.
Speaking of vending machines; I’m sure billionaire Bill Gates uses them occasionally. I have wondered what he does when he gets change from one. Does he reach down into the coin return and retrieve his forty cents? Figuring that Gates was worth $0 at birth, I wonder what his lifelong per second income is. If I were good at math I would be able to figure it out. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill Gates is worth something like $5.00 for every second he has been alive. Mathematically speaking, I’m sure Gates takes a financial loss whenever he bothers to fetch money from a vending machine coin return. So, does he bother?
This morning, when I found the dime, I picked it up and for a few seconds thought of myself as having a bit of luck, ten cents worth of luck, to be exact. Then I began wondering how long it will be before a disowned dime will no longer be worthy of my rescue efforts. Probably not long, unfortunately. It seems that even luck can have a rate of inflation.
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