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| We thought the lips on the fish on the bottom right looked like Angelina Jolie's so we called her Angie. |
For my brother Dallin's birthday, we headed up to the Chattanooga, Tennessee Aquarium. Don't get me wrong, I loved seeing the marine life, but my favorite part is probably not what you'd expect. I find it kind of funny really.
My other brother, Jacob, had inserted a dollar into one of the fancy little coin presses and asked it for change to send spiraling down the funnels that are put there to collect the spare change from kids like my brother. You know, for marine life conservation funds and the like.
Much to my brother's dismay, it spit out a gold dollar. That dismay quickly turned into a wide grin. Gold coins may not be good to dump down fund-raising funnels but around here gold coins come only from the tooth fairy, which makes them high commodity and quite a treasure.
Jacob took out a five dollar bill, inserted it into the coin press, and then pressed the button for change and his grin widened as five gold coins spat out.
Dallin and I, who had been watching the sharks, quickly realized where the fun was at and soon had our own heeping piles of gold coins. Every dollar bill I had became a gold coin until my pocket was so heavy that my pants sagged to one side.
When we got back to the car it was like the floor of the stock market as we inspected our coins, peering over to get a look at each other's, and then quickly trading before either of us could change our minds.
Most kids trade Pokemon, we trade gold coins.
I'd say they make the ideal souvenir. They cost nothing and they never lose value.
Besides, they remind me of treasure chests and pirates sitting atop their plunders, counting their booty.
We probably looked pretty funny giggling and shrieking around the coin press machine, walking around with huge clinking bulges in our pockets, saying things that, to the people walking past our car, probably sounded pretty ridiculous. Things like, "I'll give you four Sacagaweas for your Lincoln."
But pirates don't seem to care what other people think. And nor did I, because, man, were we havin' fun.
Candidly,
Cookie
(In case you were wondering what's with the title, I asked my brother Dallin to title it. I'd say he's got a career in the making. You should've heard his other suggestions. Among them was "Little Fuzz Brains". Don't ask me where that came from.)
