CoinStar

Remeber the times back in High School when we used to do stupid stuff and laugh for days about it? 

..some of the same stuff you find yourself reminiscing about years later.

Lately, I've had some super cool flashbacks to high school fun-times and have really enjoyed the opportunity to let-loose and be the old, crazy, obnoxious me.

I'll take you on flashback for a few moments to set the proverbial "stage" for a moment so you can appreciate the story that I'm about to tell.

So, in High School (as many of you readers know), I had a steady boyfriend.  Despite the fact that he had what woud have been considered really nice cars, inevitably, we would always end up driving around town like total fools in a hooptie.  And by hooptie, I mean an old red 4-door sunbird that his dad drove to work.  Or sometimes an old white caprice (the box style) police car that his dad had bought really cheap.  Once, when we went to Las Vegas together, we had an old grey Corsica as a rental car and it was fun too.

But nonetheless - we were always doing the stupidest stuff, and just laughing about it for ever.

Those are some of THE best memories in my life.

Recently, I found myself buying a new (to me) car.

Why?  Because my sweet ride needed about $2k worth of work to make it drive properly, and since my family was outgrowing it anyway, I decided to upgrade to the full-fledged Soccer Mom Mobile.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, there are no bumper stickers indicating that my child is smarter than yours.... there are no decals on the back window with stick figures of me, my kids and their pets.... and there's most certainly not a magnet to show that my son is #48 on the football team.

So don't worry - i'm not there...

yet.

But anyway - for those of you who know me (all too well) and love me anyway, you can only imagine the condition of the inside of my old car.

To make a long story short, I met an old friend for dinner and then we went to the dealership to clean out my car.  He insisted that we retrieve every single piece of change (coins) that was in there. 

I maintained my arguement that whomever cleaned out my car deserved that kind of a tip for having to deal with all the crap.

But he won.

So, all of my change went into his pocket.

After we were done cleaning out my car, he suggested we go over to the CoinStar machine at Kroger to cash in my coins. 

I laughed.

But quickly realized he was serious... so away we went. 

It was one of those moments where I didn't have my kids with me, I was able to be 'me'... and just have a good time. 

So, we followed eachother to the CoinStar, where he proudly unloaded his pockets and dumped my change into the little tray.

Because i'd never done this before, I was laughing.

Laughing at the fact that this poor friend just got every ounce of change that was available from my car and is now standing in the CoinStar machine cashing it in for me.

Laughing at the fact that, as we stand at the CoinStar machine listenin to the change drop one-by-one; we just might look like people who are cashing in the money we found in our couch so we can buy milk.

Laughing at the fact that there was over $15 in change randomly laying around my car.

But most of all, I was thankful for the fact that I was able to spend time with a sweet friend who makes me laugh and gives me an opportunity to be myself.

Life isn't so bad :)