I recently cashed in a big heavy bag of spare change in order to get a small amount of light, papery things that will buy me food. I ran my money through a machine that sorts it for me (and takes a percentage, of course) because I will be damned if I am going to spend my Saturday afternoon rolling coins into those silly cardboard sleeves. The leftover coins kept popping out of the reject slot, and to my amazement, I had somehow amassed a fair collection of foreign money. I have been keeping it in my satchel ever since. My logic runs like this: if someday I happen to get abducted by someone (or something) and then the someone (or something) drops me off somewhere far, far from home, my collection of outlandish money just might save my life. I have enough on my person to buy a Snickers bar in Canada, France, England, the Cayman Islands. Alternately, I have enough to buy a life-sustaining gumball in the Netherlands or Poland. If I were feeling particularly resourceful, I might even be able to sell a few coins to a shop, as I have a 1917 British penny, with Ye Olde King George V on it. A similar coin is currently selling for twelve dollars on eBay.
My satchel also contains a pen (useful), my passport (useful), my checkbook (worthless), a book (absolutely necessary), a cherry flavored Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop™ (tasty), and a collection of necessary beauty products such as cologne, Carmex, eye drops, a tin of pomade, and an emergency tube of glitter. The fact that I am carrying an emergency tube of glitter just might make me the queerest boy in the known universe, but hey -- what if I am abducted by someone (or something) that is as enthralled by shiny things as I am? (And I am really enthralled by shiny things.) I just might be able to use those sparkly silver motes to help effect a desperate escape.
I just went into my satchel to see if I had any American money with which I could buy a Twix bar. For some reason, all three quarters were huddled together in one narrow crease, keeping themselves (and several defenseless dimes and nickels) safe from the encroaching foreign currency, the elitist bastards. They seem to have left the pennies to fend for themselves. I did not know that the quarter hated the penny so much. Or maybe the penny is just a lot braver.