Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Loose Change...

I tipped the recliners over yesterday while cleaning.
Fifty-two cents tumbled out of one of them.
Not the one my husband always sits in.
Which led me to believe that the two quarters and two pennies belonged to my dad.

My dad was notorious for leaving change wherever he sat.
He kept his loose change in his pocket and it ALWAYS fell out.
When I was growing up, this was very handy.
If I wanted a soda from the driving range down the street, I'd fish around in the sofa cushions.
Voila!
On ice-cream day in junior high, a little side trip to the living room before leaving for school usually netted the quarter I needed.
My kids caught on to the situation early on.
They loved to check the couch for coins.
I wouldn't be surprised if he loaded up the couch before they visited.
Then again, he probably didn't have to.

My mom bought him a little coin pouch.
She hoped that having all the change in a pouch in his pocket would give it weight to stay put.
It didn't work.
He lost the whole thing.

The last time we went to the movies with my dad was a little over a year ago.
By that time he was fairly hard of hearing.
We sat down and heard the tinkling of change falling to the floor.
My husband and I laughed.
My dad had a puzzled look on his face. "What's so funny?"
"You didn't hear that?" I asked.
"Hear what?"
"Oh nothing. Why don't you stand up for a second."
He stood and I used my phone to light the space under his seat.
A couple of dollars worth of change lay scattered about on the sticky floor.
"Oh my stars," he laughed.
I picked it up and handed it to him but he refused it.
Tradition.
Finders keepers.

So yesterday, when the change fell out of the recliner, I paused.
A little gift from my dad.
When I was a kid, I could have bought a couple of candy bars for the two of us.
Fifty-two cents doesn't go as far as it used to.
I'll just hang on to it.
Thanks Dad.

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