Thursday, January 31, 2008

Change, change, chaaannge...

A part of my commuting routine includes stopping at the newspaper stand in the Hoboken train station to pick up a mini can of Pringles and a Vitamin Water. I have this small fear that the employees at the stand have nicknamed me "Pringle Girl" because I barely have to hold up what I'm buying anymore. They just take one look at me and say "three dollars." So tonight as I was pulling out my wallet, some change had fallen out of the coin side. [Earlier at work I was putting ten cents into my negative jar and I must have forgotten to zip up that side of my wallet.] As I was slowly bending down to pick up the change, a man with a briefcase coming out of the Path station had bent down to pick up the quarters I had dropped. Now most people might expect that this man was being nice and returned my dropped change. NO. Instead he took the change, put it in his pocket, and casually walked off to catch his train. I wasn't really sure what to make of the situation, but when I turned around the newsstand man was cracking up.

"He just took your money!" He chuckled.
I shrugged as I handed over my three dollars. "Eh, it was probably only fifty cents."
"But still," he was beginning to turn red from laughing.
"Well I guess he needs the money more than I do." I smiled and turned around to hop on my train. Luckily, I ended up with a seat to myself for the whole ride.

When I got home I told my dad what had happened at the train station. He shook his head and said his expected "unbelievable." He was curious to know why I hadn't said anything and asked for my money.

I repeated "It was pocket change!"

I just have to make sure that I don't say anything too negative tomorrow at work, because now I am short on change.



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4 comments:

Dwyer said...

That really IS unbelievable! I can't believe a businessman needed your pocket change so badly that he knelt on the ground to pick it up instead of helping give it back to you. Hah, only in New York! By the way, why do you have a negative jar at work?

Kerri said...

Because apparently I'm too hard on myself haha.

Kerri said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dwyer said...

Haha!