Saturday, April 16, 2011

Priceless Commodity

I was talking with my friend the other day when she told me about her dilemma. She had been doing laundry in the washroom and she ran out of quarters. The front office was empty and she felt she'd be stuck with loads of wet clothes. I quickly assured her I had quarters to spare and ran indoors for my stash.

As she began pulling her clothes out from the washers I went ahead and loaded up the quarters into the slots for the dryers. (The dryers stack on top of each other and the coin slots are located between the two machines.) After my friend got all her laundry in the dryers she swung the doors shut, placed both hands on the coin levers and pushed them into the machine simultaneously while swinging her hips for added effect. The dryers kicked on with their steady whir and both us girls got caught up in our conversation. I told my friend how I too, enjoy pushing both coin levers in at once and went to reenact the move my friend had just done. (For someone who doesn't really enjoy doing laundry finding simple pleasures in the process can be quite rewarding, as small as that might be.) With my bag full of quarters in hand I walked up to the dryers and pretended to shove both levers back with gusto. At that exact moment my bag full of quarters busted out the seams and down came all my coins, clattering to the floor.

I believe my face had a look of shock on it as I watched my quarters fall to the floor in slow motion. I was desperately hoping that none of my quarters wound up underneath the washers and dryers. Quarters are a priceless commodity around these parts! While I wore a look of panic on my face my friend couldn't stop laughing and we both dropped to our knees and hurriedly gathered up all the loose quarters before someone had a chance to intervene.

Thankfully no coins were lost to the black, dusty encrusted abyss underneath the machines. Perhaps the next time I feel the need to move with gusto I'll make sure my quarters aren't in a weathered Ziploc bag.

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