It’s Raining Quarters, Or, The Universe Pays Me Back

One of the reasons that I am so perfect for my darlin’ husband, is that we both see beauty in the mechanical and mundane, and want to rescue it and cram it into our overcrowded house. Now, please excuse me as I rapidly change subject to further the story, but keep this tidbit of information in the back of your mind.

For the entire month of March, the universe was torturing me. It started with discovering that I had four bald tires (one on the verge of explosion) while I was four hours from home. I spent my rent money on a new set.

A week later, I took a shower and dressed, stepped into my pantry to retrieve some dinner ingredients, and realized I had a shower in the pantry. After fetching our handy-man, known to most as Papa, it was discovered that my water heater was busted, and the thirty gallons of hot water was pouring onto my hardwood floor as fast as it could. Three hundred dollars and two days with no hot water later, I was the proud owner of a new hot water heater.

Four days later, Dot and I were looking at the television schedule, in search of a history documentary to watch.

"Hey Dot, there’s one about the underground cities of Rome. You wanna watch that one?"

"How can you see that?"

"By looking at it. Can you not see it?"

"Nope. It’s just a big blob."

Since we were only ten feet away, it was clear that my darlin’ girl needed new glasses. Then, I started getting eye strain headaches, and Eric’s glasses wouldn’t stay on his face. New glasses for all three of us, no insurance! Hooray.

I was beginning to wonder what I had done to fuck up my karma.

On Tuesday, Eric was at work, helping his boss clean out a storage room. Bossman pulled out a candy/gumball machine and put it on the trash pile. It caught Eric’s attention, being four shiny red metal machines with chrome doors, all on a chrome stand.

"Hey," Eric said to Bossman, "are you throwing those away?"

"Yeah, you want ’em?"

When Eric said that he did want them, Bossman was confused. Eric then had to explain our house to him.

"Well, you can take it, but we don’t have a key."

Later that afternoon, Eric found our new candy machine sitting by the dumpster, so he loaded it on a cart and put it in our car. His coworkers laughed at him. When he showed me, I was ecstatic.

"That’s beautiful, and if we can find a place to cram it into the living room, it will match perfectly."

On the way home, I was distracted by the sound of metal clinking in the backseat.

"Eric, I think that sumbitch has quarters in it."

"Ya think so?"

"Yes I do, and I’m gonna bust it open when we get home."

When I carried it in the house, it was so heavy that I knew I hit a jackpot. We started by removing the individual machines from the stand. We thought we could access the change through the bottom of the machines. We were wrong.

"Shit. The only way to do it is through the top."

"I’ll google ’how to break into a candy machine’," I shouted.

"I’m gonna see if I can hammer a screw driver into that key slot and unscrew it that way." He grabbed a giant screwdriver and a hammer and took it to the back porch.

I heard the sounds of banging as I turned the computer on.

"I did it!" Eric rushed into the bedroom and dumped a mountain of quarters onto the bed.

"Holy shit! That’s a shit-load of quarters! Let’s take guesses as to how much it is. I think there will be a hundred dollars."

Turns out, I was right. It took us forty-five minutes to break into the machines, and we made $100.25 for our efforts. Granted, it’s nowhere close to the thousand dollars I spent in March, but I feel good about the deal. Now I have a gorgeous vintage candy machine, and four hundred and one quarters in a bowl on my table. I’m gonna use my share to upgrade the terrace in my backyard, so I have a place to sit while visitin’ and barbecuing.