Sometimes a royalty will drop into the mail slot years after the book came out. It’s amazing to get paid – even 
a pittance – for books that are sometimes twenty or more years old. My husband, The Prof, who has called writing “the greatest case of delayed gratification” he’s ever seen, is properly respectful of these astonishing dollops of dinero.
But I found yet another form of “found money” while cleaning out the drawers and jars and small pots that have been stuck on bookshelves or dressers to catch the change we seem to accumulate. The more I cleaned, the more I found. It began to overwhelm me, so I got a large canning jar and started decanting all the various smaller ones into it.
This morning I sorted through it and separated out all the foreign change.
We have a serious chunk of foreign change which means we are going to have to go back to New Zealand and Ireland and Austria and Italy and Spain and the Netherlands, not to mention to England because it’s doing us no good at all here. And someone is going to have to go to Brazil because our son brought back coins after he worked down there.
We might have to think about opening our own Bureau de Change because, let’s face it, the grandkids can only do so many social studies projects on foreign money.
For the moment, however, these alien coins have their own jar — awaiting the next expedition to wherever.
The American stuff I took to the bank this morning — and came home with ninety-seven dollars!
Good grief! Who knew?
I have new respect for the quarters, dimes and nickels I stick in the cup on the top of the dresser. And the stuff that falls behind the chair — and in the laundry basket.
And the ninety-seven dollars I have decided I will tuck away for something wonderful — I just need to figure out what’s wonderful enough to merit it.
I must say, I now have an even greater incentive to keep cleaning the house.
And the gratification isn’t quite so delayed, either!
