EXPERIENCE #1
When I had my first job, I would cash my weekly checks at the bank. I would walk up to the next available teller, and I am asked, “And how would you like that back?” I remember the first time I was asked this, and I had thought to myself, “I don’t care HOW you give it back…just that you DO give it back, and it’s worth the same amount as my check says its worth.” I was so excited about my fifty-two dollar paycheck from my first few days of working that I had her give me a fifty and two ones. Why? Because I had never had a fifty dollar bill before. I’m not sure if I had even ever seen one before this point. Being so excited, I went to Subway and got my favorite thing on the menu. (And if you must know, it was the BMT on cheddar. YUM.) I hand over the fifty dollar bill, feeling on top of the world. I’m thinking this girl behind the counter will be impressed. I’m thinking she’ll say, “Wow, she must work a lot.” What I DIDN’T think she would say was, “Sorry, we don’t take fifties.”
WHATTT???
“Excuse me?” I said. She then goes on, saying how they “can’t break a fifty,” Blah, blah, blah. I end up going to three different places before I find a gas station that will break it for me. Who wouldn’t want a fifty dollar bill, anyhow???
EXPERIENCE #2
The next week, I went to the bank to cash my second check, almost triple the amount of the first. (And I thought I was excited last time!)
This time, I had a plan…a plan that excluded fifties. The teller asks, “And how would you like that back?” I tell her, “Half twenties, half tens.”
Over the next few days of shopping here and there, the tens and twenties fly out of my purse. Some of it seemed to disappear in the “It’s only thirteen dollars…I’ll hand them a twenty, and still have change!” internal battle. And yes, I lost to that battle almost every time.
EXPERIENCE #3
After I have these two weekly experiences, I go in to cash my third paycheck. Like clockwork, the teller asks, “And how would you like this back?” Here’s my thought process:
Well, Mr. Teller, I’m not quite sure. If I get large bills, I won’t be able to spend them at all, but if I get small bills, they pretty much spend themselves. There are things that I would like and/or need to buy, but I don’t have the will power to go without buying all the things that I can but shouldn’t! So! I can either have nothing and my whole check, or some things with no money.
I didn’t know that at this particular moment, I had just encountered a life lesson that goes deeper than money. I DID know that Mr. Teller was looking at me like I was crazy because I was standing there, obviously thinking and internally debating my options. To him, someone who asks this question a hundred times a day, he had to have been thinking, “Is she thinking about what bills are coming out? Or is she just stupid? C’mon, I get off in ten minutes!”
I open my mouth to answer, but no answer comes out. W.T.F.
I almost tell Mr. Young Teller about my two experiences and ask what he thinks I should do, but I worried about my fragile self-esteem. For a moment, I honestly considered just taking my check home with no cash in hand, but then decided that I was already at the bank, and feared embarrassment above all else. I ended up saying, “Half large bills and half small bills,” which, looking back, makes no sense, but Mr. Teller did the best he could, bless his heart.
EXPERIENCE #4
My parents have always kept a glass jar in their bedroom, and filled it with all the change that was left over at the end of the day when emptying all their jean pockets. (I, unfortunately, have not taken up this good habit, therefore, my purse weighs forty pounds and jingles when you poke it.) Right before their vacation, my mom rolled up their coins that had accumulated in the jar, and put them in a box to be their “spending” money. I went to the bank with her, and the teller added everything up and sorted it out. Something around seventy dollars later, Mrs. Blue Hair Teller asks without fail, “and how would you like that back?”
At this point, I’m saying to myself, “I wonder how many times a day these people have to ask that question.” I mean, was it really that big of a deal? Why didn’t they just give you whatever they felt like? Its still the same amount of money, right?
SUMMED UP BY: EXPERIENCE #5
I’m sitting in the school age room at the daycare, week before last. I was never in there, really, and it was time to help with homework. One of the little girls, about six or seven years old is sitting with me, and pulls out her math homework, which was learning about money. She was lost, and clearly frustrated. I pull out a few dollars in coins from my purse (a small percentage of what is in there on any given day. Hehe.) and we start practicing. In the one example, I laid two quarters out, then ten pennies and asked which one was of higher value. “The two quarters,” she said. This went on, and she did very well until I put one quarter out, and then twenty-five pennies. “Which one is worth more?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. I point to the quarter and ask how much it’s worth. “Twenty-five cents,” she says. Then I ask how much the pennies are worth, and after she counts, she says, “Twenty-five cents.” I smile, thinking she has just figured it out, and ask which one is worth more, and she says again, “…I don’t know.” I explain that they’re the same, that they’re equal, and she says to me, “Well, why do we have that one [the quarter] if we could have all pennies? It would be easier if we just had pennies and we could just count them.”
“Hold out your hand,” I tell her, and she does. I dig out a dollar bill, and put it in her one hand, and then count out one hundred cents in the smallest of change as I can and put it in her other hand. It barely stays in her small hand, and a few spill onto the table. “Its hard to keep carry all of that, isn’t it? It’s much easier if we have a dollar, its just a little tricky to learn how to use all the different coins and dollars.”
“Why not just have dollars then?” she asked me. Then I tell her, “Give me fifty cents of that dollar,” pointing to the dollar bill.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“…Because it’s a dollar.”
AND THAT HAD ME THINKING…(and when does it not?)
How much is a life worth? No amount of money, of course, but my life certainly isn’t worth any more or any less than yours or anyone else’s, so why does it matter what it’s made of?
I figure it would go like this: I would walk into the Bank of Existence, and hand the teller a voucher for my life, just like I did with my checks, and He would ask me, “And how would you like that back?” If my voucher is for a million “credits,” as I’ll call them, I could spend it on millions of low quality experiences and beliefs, all cheap and unrewarding, though easily attained, or I could spend them on high quality experiences, beliefs, and events. It may cost me more time and effort, but it’s highly more self-gratifying, and more pleasing to God, the most important teller of them all.
So I’ll ask you, the readers of all of my crazy analogies: God has given you a voucher to cash with experiences…and how would YOU like that back?
I recently moved into a new house. It was a mass improvement from where I had been living, offering more space and just higher quality everything. If you’ve ever moved, you know that this is a huge deal, both financially, physically, and even emotionally. It was a big change, and I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face for about a month and a half.
Recently, I babysat a wonderful little girl for the first time, and we made Halloween cupcakes, since Halloween is her favorite holiday ever. They were nothing spectacular, just box cupcakes and Betty Crocker icing with the sprinkles on the top part of the lid. We sat down to ice the cupcakes and add the sprinkles. She iced her cupcake, and then asked for the sprinkles. She’s only three, so I was prepared for a HUGE mess. (What’s the fun if it’s not a little messy??) To my great surprise, she was very neat with the sprinkles, and was done after a few pinches. We went to sit at the table, and I was in awe as she ate her cupcake. She took small, excited bites, and smiled the whole time we were eating. About two bites in, a few sprinkles fell onto the table. She put her cupcake down, picked up a sprinkle-just one-and ate it, chewing and still smiling. She picked up the second, and ate it, still giggling with happiness, and did that until all six sprinkles were eaten. When they were gone, she picked up her cupcake, and ate a few more bites, and licked all the icing off, like every other three-year old in the world.
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