From time to time (meaning, “as needed”) I go to the bank to get rolls of quarters. The laundry machines in my apartment eat more than I can produce in two weeks-ish, so it’s necessary to supplement the supply on a semi-regular basis.

Tearing open my most recent roll, I noticed that the quarters were inordinately shiny. Usually, you see, they’re a hodgepodge of well-worn currency, their travels seen clearly in their scarred and dirtied edges. These, however, were uniformly bright, clean, and sharp. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the first quarter was a brand-new, 2003, Illinois-state quarter. Land of Lincoln – 21st State Century brackets a resemblance of presumably Lincoln, and an outline of the state of Illinois (which, by the way, I once lived in… but that’s another equally uninteresting story).

At any rate, the second quarter looked the same as the first. As did the third. The fourth, The fifth. You get the picture. This struck me as very cool. I figure that I’m the first person to actually use these quarters. The first to put them in to circulation. I have a whole roll of them, 40 little charges, whose destiny I can determine omnipotently just by virtue of wear I select to use them. It’s like that thought of holistics, the interconnectedness of all things: “When a butterfly beats it’s wings in China, a hurricane strikes in Florida.” What events will be set into motion by my actions with these new quarters? I, personally, am diluting the value of the dollar by $40, but what good might I be doing as well?

Of course, setting their “destiny” in motion by washing my sox brings me floating back to earth.