Saturday, December 8, 2018

ExtraCENTSory Deception

Pickin's were slim this week until THURSDAY, Dec. 6th. I'd been on the lookout since Sunday, but obviously no pennies were meant for me. I was not worthy. Not even on Monday, when I stopped by the cemetery for my weekly visit, and saw that the flowers were gone from Mom and Dad's grave!

We'd had trouble early on, with grave-robbers. Not taking people. This isn't a real-life Muff Potter situation, and I wasn't swinging a dead cat after midnight to rid myself of a wart. No, the grave-robbers were taking the screw-in flower-holders, and selling them as scrap metal. So Sis and I voiced our concerns, and the cemetery people (workers, not residents) gave us a plastic flower-holder as a replacement. Which is not nearly as good, but at least nobody wants to steal it.

Anyhoo...I figured our bout of high winds last week probably blew flowers out of many holders. The wire wastebasket in that area was full of plastic flowers, and I don't think there was a rush of people trashing their old flowers and putting on Christmas displays. Once they blow across the Garden of Love, the workers can't determine which flowers go where, so they clean up and dispose of them.

Anyhoo...seeing as how Mom had been deflowered left without any flowers, I promised to return with some fake foliage for the season, and went on to Walmart. I couldn't find any good arrangements, but I settled for one with fake pine needles, fake berries, and fake poinsettias. I stopped again and put these plastic plants in the plastic vase. That made me feel better. Kind of good-deedy.

Anyhoo...I went back to Walmart on Thursday, to pick up some gifts for Babe, who is the 4-year-old daughter of Niecy, who is the daughter of Sis. I was going to drive back through and check on the Christmas plastic flowers at the cemetery, but there was a truck parked along there, and I don't like to interrupt people. So I just hollered (windows up, I'm not crazy!) from the main road to Mom and Dad that I couldn't stop, but I'd gotten all my Christmas gifts I'd been shopping for.

I only had one stop left, that being the Gas Station Chicken Store for my daily 44 oz Diet Coke, and scratchers. A new clerk was clerking, and two of her customers had problems, no fault of hers. One couldn't get his card to work. Another came in to say that the lady who'd left ahead of me had gotten the wrong cigarettes, and he wanted to trade them even for a different brand. While New Clerk was taking care of them, the Chicken Lady stepped over to help me. I stepped left to get to her register, and that's when I saw...


Not the expected penny, but A DIME! If I hadn't moved over, I never would have noticed it!


It was a 2014, face down. That was the year Mom had her seizure the day before Thanksgiving. and found out about her brain tumor thingy that caused it. The last year we had Christmas with her.

I think those are some kind of fake plants on the back of that dime. Dimes always make me think of my dad, because we found them all over the house in the months after he passed away, way back in 1998.

I'm pretty sure this dime was a reward for my good-deediness with the fake flowers. You can believe what you want.
_________________________________________________________________________

For 2018: This was still Penny # 122.
For 2018: Dime  # 16.
For 2018: Nickels still at  # 5.
For 2018: Quarter still at #1.


Since March 2017 (the beginning), this is still Penny # 200.
Since March 2017 (the beginning), this is Dime # 22.
Since March 2017 (the beginning), this is still Nickel # 5.
Since March 2017 (the beginning), this is still Quarter #1.
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12 comments:

  1. I'm surprised you didn't glance left while waiting and spot that shiny dime. Usually you glance all around. I guess your mind was elsewhere, maybe at the cemetery already waiting for you to catch up and place the fake poinsettia.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I DO look all around, including surveying the whole area as I approach with my magical elixir. I was standing on the other mat at first.

      I guess maybe the gal who bought the cigarettes was standing on the dime? Or maybe she dropped it. She had moved to the left while putting stuff in her purse, to make way for me at the lottery counter. Then I was looking at the guy having trouble with his card to my right. THEN the cigarette gal's male companion came back in.

      So...I WAS preoccupied, and not my usual penny-sniffing self.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Either you're crazy like me, or I could have pursued a second career as a lawyer, since this means I can present a persuasive case.

      Delete
  3. You always have a way of taking a day's adventures and weaving them into a lovely retelling.

    I am sorry about your mother. My brother also passed from a brain tumor.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. That's much nicer than my second-best ol' teaching buddy Karen, who always said, "Okay, go on with your boring story."

      Sorry to hear about your brother. Mom didn't even know she had it until that seizure.

      Delete
  4. I visited my parents graves when we went to Georgia. I pulled all the weeds from around each grave and wished I had thought to bring some bulbs to plant in the old country cemetery. Grounds maintenance is not great there. I my mother would like having some tulips, daffodils and lilies popping up around her. My dad has my mother on one side of him and my step mother will be at his feet next to her first husband. Wonder what a shrink would have to say about that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That IS a curious arrangement! I know if you lived closer, you would have that area blooming.

      Hick's parents are in an old country cemetery. We used to get a letter every year from the people who mowed and maintained it, and we sent a donation. Lately we haven't gotten the letter, so I don't know who's taking care of it now.

      Delete
  5. I know around here up our main town cemertry they just though the flowers over the bankment.
    Coffee is on

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's no embankment handy for such disposal around here. But sometimes those fake flowers blow all the way across the road, and I guess they become state property until some do-gooders adopt that section of highway and pick up the trash.

      Delete
  6. Your life is so interesting, and I looks o forward to reading your posts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not all that interesting, just me letting my crazy show! I appreciate you enabling me.

      Delete