Growing in to Grown Up

“I Got a Pocket, Got a Pocket Full of Gold Coins” | July 29, 2009

Last summer, before The Big Move, I was visiting my [3rd generation] friend Emily at her new place in The Loop.  Her sister was also headed downtown for the weekend and asked Emily to park her car in the lot behind her building while she rushed off to wherever she was headed.  She gave Em two $20 bills to cover the parking fee…cuz parking in The Loop? It ain’t cheap. 

It ended up costing $21 for 24 hours of parking. We put in the money, got the sticker to hang in the window, and waited for the change.  The machine started clanking and Emily and I realized we were going to get $19 in coins back. Em’s first thought was “If this machine spits out 76 quarters for me to lug around, someone’s gonna get hurt!” “No one wants to be tipped in quarters.”

Well, it ended up being 19 Sacagawea Dollars which arguably is better than 76 quarters, assuming you don’t have laundry to do, but still not nearly as cool as nine $2 bills plus a single would have been. We got a kick out of counting the coins out as we handed the change to her sister and definitely got a few double takes as we paid for drinks at a pub in Wrigleyville later that night.

I forgot about this whole situation until Monday, when I parked at The Flying Saucer for $2 and only had a $20.  Thanks to automated parking cashiers, I’m now hauling around 18 William Henry Harrison dollars in my purse.

The guy at Starbucks loved it when I handed him six gold coins to pay for my latte and muffin this morning. And now I have the Natasha Bedingfield parody that Em and I made up last summer stuck in my head.