Having Just Enough

It has probably happened to you. That elusive parking space finally appears. You strategically back into the spot and adjust the car to be about a foot from the sidewalk and a safe distance from the cars on either end. As you hop out of the car, push the lock button and proceed to the parking meter, you open your wallet and find no change. Back to the car you frantically look in the ashtray and find a penny, earring and a rock. Now you start pulling up the floor mats and find a few more pennies, an M&M, lots of dirt, but no usable coins. You look around and there are no open businesses to give you change.

This happened to me today. Only not with a parking meter, but a newspaper machine. I wanted to purchase the Sunday Oregonian to learn about events in Portland for my upcoming trip. On the newspaper box I read “$1.50—insert any type of coin, except for pennies.” I had $1.00 in my wallet. There was a dime in the ashtray; two more dimes under the floor mat and in the glove box another two dimes.

Finally, I had scrounged enough to buy the newspaper. I put the coins in the slot and pulled on the lever, but it would not open. I pulled harder, no luck. I pushed the coin return and held my breath until I heard the sound of the change dropping. Thinking it must have just choked on one of the coins, I tried again. My rule of thumb in these situations is to try the same thing again and hope for different results. Someone once said that is called insanity. Because if I didn’t lose my money the first time, maybe I would on the next try. I glanced down at the newspaper and stamped in red was “$2.50.” As I drove home without a newspaper, I thought that I am probably not the first person that this has happened to.

At home I poured change from the jar onto the countertop and then returned to the scene of the crime. The six papers were still in the machine. Had other people had the same experience as I did?

For today’s gift, I taped four quarters to a small index card and wrote, “Take what you need to buy a paper. In the future, when you have extra change, pay it forward by leaving it for someone else.” As I left with the Oregonian, I thought that the next person can walk away feeling satisfied that they had just enough money to buy a newspaper.

In Giving,

Robin