Fortune

It’s coin change day.

Now I think most people know what that is. But just in case, coin change day is the day that your mother takes stock of all the 2-quart V8 Mixed Berry bottles on the floor of the kitchen, and sees they’re finally full to the top with pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and the occasional golden dollar, puts her hands on her hips, smiles, and shouts over her shoulder, “it’s coin change day!” If you didn’t grow up poor, or you used your coins for a city bus, or your parents brought all those nice quarters to the casino on Friday night, you might not know what coin change day is, but hey, now you do.

Anyway, it’s coin change day, and when I hear my mom shout as much to me from the kitchen, my ten-year-old self slurps the rest of the cereal milk from my bowl, switches off the god-awful early afternoon talk show that just started on the local ABC affiliate, and pulls on a pair of pants.

My sister Lisa is playing Mario on the edge of her bed, mere inches from the 12-inch screen. “You coming to town with us?” I ask her. But it’s 11 in the morning, she’s in her pajamas, she’s almost to level 12, and Bowser’s about to get it. “Hell no.”

I’m relieved. See, usually when mom brings one of us to town, we’ll stop at the gas station to put in a few bucks of gas, she’ll grab a pack of smokes, and we’ll be able to beg our way to a candy bar, slushee, or soda. The trick, though, was being there without Lisa, since mom could only afford a treat for whoever came along. Mom would tell me, thumbing through the dollar bills and coin purse in her bag and frowning, “don’t you tell Lisa you got that. She’ll get mad at me.”

So my mom and I are waddling outside to the car with seven V8 bottles so full of coins they don’t even make a clanging sound as we toss them into the back seat. My mom pushes her wispy brown hair behind her ears and smiles.

The drive into town takes about 15 minutes, and by the time we’re rattling down the main drag toward the bank, the orange gas light has been glaring at us for a good ten minutes. My mom pulls into the gas station halfway through town. “Don’t wanna get stranded,” she says. I roll my eyes, doubtful that we’d run out of gas in the mile we had left to the bank, but I hop out next to her at the gas pump, thinking of the possible Twix bar of bottle of Coke I could swindle her into buying me. But as I plant one foot on the ground after swinging the car door open, I see an old oxidized penny staring up at me.

I get all the way out of the car and crouch down to get a closer look, not wanting to pick up a tails-side-up coin. Bad luck, right? But as I scratch away the moldy-looking green film off the face of the penny, I see Abraham Lincoln’s grumpy face.

Mine, on the other hand, is ecstatic. I scoop it up and hold it up over the car so my mom can see it from the other side. “Found it heads up!” I say. My mom laughs. “Throw it in one of the bottles! It’ll add good luck.”

I cram it in the top of one, rescrew the lid, and take another look at our hoarded loot. “How much do you think we have?”

“What’s your guess,” she asks me.

“30?” I say, a question in my voice. “50? A hundred?”

My mom gives me a “hmm,” and asks me what I think given I just found a good-luck penny.

“I think a hundred,” I say then, and back out of the car to go inside with my mom to pay. She goes to the counter, and I pull a Twix bar out from the display under where she’s standing and slip it toward the register. “Can I?”

She pulls out her wallet, puts three dollar bills on the counter, and another four quarters and a few dimes and nickels totalling the cost of the gas. Then, she puts the candy bar back. “We’ll come back after the bank,” she tells me.

Alright, I’ve still got a chance, then, I tell myself all the way to the shiny doors that some nice man holds open for us as we waddle through with the bottles. And, there’s the coin counting machine, and my mom watches as I pour the brass- and silver-colored coins onto the belt and listens to the chinking sound of them falling into the counter, and watches as the little green LED screen counts up from .01 to dollars and then up from there.

Watching the total rise as the bottles are emptied is enthralling. The first two bottles land us firmly in the $30 range. Then $50 after two more. Then $75 after the sixth. I pour the first half of the last bottle in, and watch as it goes to a disappointing $82, then $83.68, then sputters to a measly $84.37. I tip the bottle all the way over, thinking of that lucky heads-up penny, and cross my fingers, almost close my eyes for squinting. The grand total comes to $101.30.

We bring the slip to the teller, and she hands over the stiff 20 dollar bills and change and my mom and I go back to the gas station to pick out that candy bar. I put it on the counter, and she reaches her hand down and grabs another one for Lisa.