 change pile (mark michaels' featured household item of the day)
This is my change pile. It's not really in a classic pile shape right now, but there it is.
My change pile is located in my breakfast nook area, under the built-in china cabinets and above the built in silverware drawers.
Basically, I get my change pile by scooping (or sweeping if you prefer) all the other little change piles that build up around the house and dumping them into this one, collective pile.
My smaller change piles tend to build up in places where I empty my pockets, like on my dresser, or on my coffee table, and to a lesser extent, the desk where my computer is stationed. I tend to find these small piles of change irritating and messy, so at some point I consolidated them into my main change pile, pictured above and to the right.
As you can see, there are some impurities in my change pile. Even from this grainy camera phone picture I can see there are car wash tokens, and nails, and even a bottle cap or two. Its curious how those objects are very similar to change in some ways, and yet they are not change, and don't really belong in the pile.
I've tried taking my change pile up a notch or two by having a cup or bowl to neatly hold all the change in one distinct parcel of three dimensional space. This worked pretty good for a while, but what happens is I end up taking the cup of change to the coinstar machine at the Kash n' Karry up the street, and trading that in for paper money. A nice full cup of change will usually bring about $20 or so. (Incidentally, the coinstar machine spits back all of your bottle caps and nails and car wash tokens, so you will have those forever unless specifically pick them out at some point.
Anyway, what often happens is, once I've collected my cash from the coin star machine, I will tend to forget my coin cup on top of the machine. (I think it might be a psychological thing where, once I have my cash, I don't want people to know that I ever resorted to carrying around cups of change.
I've thought about getting one of those oversive coke bottle piggy bank things. I used to think those things were pretty damn cool, and to some extend I suppose I still do. I mean, those things must hold a thousand dollars in change by the time that they're full. It would be a bit of a bitch pouring all that change into the coinstar machine at the Kash n' Karry--you'd probably have to have a strong friend help you hold and pour--but fuck it, when you we're done, you'd have enough money for a little trip to Vegas.
I say Vegas because I actually know a guy name Joe Vandelini whose saving for a trip to Vegas, using a big coke bottle piggy bank like that. I'm kind of skeptical that it will really work, but I'm curious to see if it happens.
The reason I'm skeptical is that Joe Vendollini is a bit of a coke head, and it seems like if you were out of cash and you really wanted more coke at three in the morning you would take that giant coke piggy bank and cash it in before it got anywhere close to a thousand dollars.
The next day, when Joe and his girlfriend were coming down off the coke, they would tell each other, "that's the last time we're doing that. From now on the coke bottle is stirictly for the trip to Vegas." But then of course, they would do it again in about ten days. And what's further silly about it, is alot of the budget for the Vegas trip would be set aside for coke anyway.
Anyway, like I said, I don't have a big coke bottle piggy bank. I don't even have a change cup anymore. And that color painted above my change pile--that's a Behr tint called Aspen Orange.
8:08:48 AM 
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