Weekend Assignment #36: Scalzi's Mug O' Change

Weekend Assignment #36: I have a mug on my desk with $70.65 in change in it. What should I do with the money? The only unacceptable answer is "give it to me." Honestly. You can do better.

  You should donate it to charity, of course. It's a perfect opportunity. It's basically found money, a windfall of sorts. I mean, you didn't miss it when you tossed it in there sixty-two cents at a time, did you? Now it's a half decent chunk o' change capable of really helping someone. And this is the time of year to help, isn't it. I've got the perfect beneficiary in mind: a fellow AOLer who's been through a horrible illness and could use assistance. Her screen name is MzGoochi, but pretty near everybody knows her as Lahoma, and there is a homegrown drive in the AOL journals community to help her and her son have a Merry Christmas. If you are interested, e-mail me and I will get the pertinent details to you. Won't get you a tax receipt, but the warm fuzzy feeling you get from helping a friend is worth twice that.

Extra Credit: If you've got a picture of your own loose change storage device, show it.

  You shouldn't discount the pennies, you know. They take longer to accumulate, but you miss them less, and when you do count them up, you can get quite a pleasant surprise. When I was single, and living at home with my parents, I dug a couple of two gallon wine jugs out of the cellar, kinda like this one, and stated throwing my pennies into them. Just pennies, no silver. When my wife and I moved into our first apartment, we counted them up. I had one bottle full and capped, and the other one almost there. I can't remember exactly how much was there, but it was more than $100. 

  These days we throw our loose change into a plastic salsa jar in the pantry in our kitchen. It never adds up to much as we dig into it when we need change for a coffee, or a stamp. I counted it up today, and it came to$38.35. Now my hands smell like pennies.
  Why do pennies smell different than every other coin? I remember those big bottles of pennies. The smell of copper pennies is like no other smell in the world. Or maybe it isn't the copper. I understand there isn't actually very much copper in those things anymore. Just like there isn't much in the way of nickel in- Wait! you say. How does the little drib drab of change in that salsa jar add up to over thirty-eight dollars? Remember, I'm in Canada. We haven't used bills for ones and twos in years. All those Loonies and Twonies add up in a hurry.
  Don't know what a Loonie or a Twonie is? That's an entry for another day.