There was a scene in the old “Our Gang” comedies, or perhaps it was in the “Little Rascals” series, in which the boys would throw a wallet out on the sidewalk attached to a string. When a passer by would stop, bend over, and go to retrieve the errant wallet and the boys would pull the string and jerk the wallet away. Kind of an April Fool’s gag that worked year round.
There is a scene very similar playing out on the streets of Magnolia.
Just outside the door to the Upper Crust bakery, there is a gold-colored coin lying on the sidewalk. It looks to be one of the comparatively new dollar pieces. I nudged it with my foot. It didn’t move. Then I stooped to pick it up, only to find that it’s glued to the cement sidewalk.
I took out my penknife and tried to slip the blade under an edge. No luck.
The dollar coin isn’t just held down with some run-of-the-mill household glue but a space-age epoxy of some kind. If I’d have been able to have gotten the edge of my of my knife blade under a part of the coin, I’d have probably broken the blade before I could have dislodged it. It’s stuck that good.
From my normal daily morning seating position, either just inside the window, or out on the sidewalk on nice days at one of the sidewalk tables, I can observe my fellow Magnolias as they walk by and spot the coin laying there.
Most attack it with a foot nudge first and then bend over and try to get a grip on it with their fingers. None of them have any luck.
“Mommy, look,” said one little boy hanging on to his mother’s hand as the two walked down McGraw Street and stopped at the bakery, “there’s some money someone dropped.”
After he tried to pick it up, and then his mother tried, they finally gave up, dejected. I’m sure that the kid could almost taste the cookie on which he was going to spend his newfound wealth. To preserve peace, his Mom bought him a cookie anyway.
Some people won’t pick up coins, or with others it depends on the value of the coin, they somehow feel it’s beneath them to stoop over for only a fraction of a dollar.
Me? I’ll pick up anything. Bend over for that copper penny, sure, I’ll snatch it up.
Some people won’t even carry coins around in their pockets or purses, concerned about unseemly bulges or coin weight. I use the weight of the coins I carry around as movable ballast, shifting my coin purse from pocket to pocket in an attempt to stay level with the other things I’ve stuffed into my jeans.
No one knows, or at least none of the people I’ve talked to, knows were the coin came from or who glued it down. I imagine who ever did it, didn’t get the job finished in only a fraction of a minute. It took some time to open the tube of epoxy, coat one side of the coin completely with the glue, especially if it was a two-stage epoxy, and then position it on the sidewalk. You’d have thought that would have drawn some attention. Unless they did it one night. One wonders.
To get the coin off, you’re going to have to use tools, and hefty ones at that. I figure at least a weighty hammer and then a cold chisel.
Line up the chisel’s blade with the edge of the coin and start pounding on it. You’ve got to be careful though, if you have the chisel at too steep an angle, you’ll be pounding on the concrete more than the coin. At too shallow an angle and you’ll just scar up the top of the coin. Which ever angle you choose, chances are that the coin is going to be pretty banged up by the time you finally get it off and it’s not going to work in any vending machine or that anyone will want it for their coin collection.
So keep your eyes peeled as you walk down the street, you never can tell what you’ll come across, and most coins aren’t glued down.
They call it loose change for a reason.
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