It Was A Two-George Day

Way back before our most recent spate of snow days...perhaps a month or so ago...I found a quarter in my plastic car container that I was not even sure was a quarter. It was bronze colored, pretty close to quarter size, and kind of thin. It could have been Canadian, eh? I don't know my coinage from our neighbor to the north, except for the occasional dime, so I was not quite sure how to proceed. I could have given it to Farmer H to puzzle over for a bit. I could have left it on the bottom of the car change holder. I could have dumped it in a vending machine and hoped it worked.

I gave that odd bronze coin to Arch Nemesis. Always one to promote good will among nemeses, I thought it could do no harm.

"Hey, take a look at this." If I wait long enough, the entire world population will pass by my hall monitoring post.

"Huh. What is that?"

"I don't know. What do you think?"

"Do you want me to soak it in something in the lab and see if I can clean it?"

"Sure. It's not doing me any good like this."

So Arch took my bronze coin to her luh-BOR-a-tory. Time marched on. Marched us right into March, and almost out the other end. The coin was long forgotten. Until yesterday.

"Hey, Hillbilly Mom! The Pony has your quarter."

"Okay." I was not sure what to make of this. Did The Pony steal a quarter from me, and Arch caught him red-hoofed? Did he get change back from paying a lab fee, or for ponying up the cold hard cash for those two test tubes that two different lab partners shattered this year? Was Arch giving me a quarter for my thoughts? I know how she respects my conspiracy theory opinions.

Right after school, The Pony appeared with my quarter. It did not look much different. Not at all like it had been bathing in an acid or base bath for 30 days. The texture was a bit smoother. But the color was the same.

"Hey, how do you know this is a quarter, Pony? I can't even see the face on it."

"Um. That's because you are looking at TAILS." He turned the coin over. Oh, yeah. There was George Washington himself.

I wasted no time in walking to the teacher workroom and sending George on a voyage down the soda machine with his buddy, himself, on a limp dollar. I'm patriotic like that.